Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish, 25, has received a driving ban after crashing his car into parked vehicles and mounting a pavement.
The collisions happened back in March after the footballer disobeyed lockdown rules to meet friends in Dickens Heath, Solihull.
West Midlands Police recovered CCTV (scroll down for video) that showed the player reversing his Range Rover Sport into a Citroen Dispatch van and then driving a short distance away.
He’s then seen reversing into a Mercedes AMG, before pulling away and dangerously mounting the pavement.
The force has said Grealish was persuaded by witnesses to exchange details and had left the scene when officers arrived.
On 18th October, while waiting to appear in court, an unmarked police car spotted the footballer travelling at more than 90mph on the M42.
He was observed driving his black Range Rover, recklessly tailgating, before being stopped near Aston Villa’s training ground. He was later charged with a further offence of driving without due care and attention.
Grealish, who already had six points on his driving licence from a previous speeding matter, pleaded guilty to the offences last month.
Yesterday, 15th December at Birmingham Magistrates Court, Grealish was banned from driving for nine months and fined £82,499. He was also ordered to pay costs.
Tanya Johnson, head of West Midlands Polices’ prosecutions team which brought forward the case, said:
“These are appalling standards of driving which could have put lives at risk.
“He should not even have been in Solihull at the time of the collisions. We were in the first lockdown and millions of other people were sacrificing their freedom to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“He had gone when officers arrived and as ever we built a case on the hard evidence we had available. He was charged but it clearly didn’t act as a warning as he was again caught speeding – which is one of the biggest factors in serious and fatal collisions on the roads.
“It’s shocking a role model to so many has repeatedly behaved in an illegal and reckless manner.”
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Image credit: (left w) PA Media.
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I wonder how much £82,499 sounds like a satisfactorily large sum but it does rather depend on what this young man actually earns. If he is on £200k a week, then it really is more of a flea bite than a thorough mauling.
Let’s face it. He hit the van hard enough to shunt it a couple of feet into what looked like a wall, reverses, clips another car and then drives forward into a wall. The car he was driving when nicked for speeding was black. The white one was presumably in for repair. On top of that, he was flagrantly breaking the lock down.
Put like that, a 9 month ban does not seem overly onerous. Really, he should have had his licence revoked, prevented from re-applying for 9 months and then made to do an extended test. In an ideal world, had he been foolish enough to drive while banned, he should be locked up for the remainder of that ban plus any subsequent ban. That would see him out of circulation for a good couple of years.
I have no idea where Aston Villa is and care even less, but I bet the residents are heaving a sigh of relief.