PREVIEW

**VIDEO AVAILABLE. CONTACT INFO@COVERMG.COM TO RECEIVE.**
This is the moment a man banned from driving nearly 20 years ago drove his friend’s pick-up truck into a parked vehicle three times - while a child was inside.
Jason Catt, 53, took the keys to the Ford Ranger without his friend’s knowledge in order to collect his daughter and her baby in Chatham, Kent on January 5. But when he arrived at Burma Way he smashed into an OpenReach van. Footage shows Catt reversing to get out of the crash, before accelerating into the van again. He then tries the same manoeuvre again with the same result.
Catt, of Tobruk Way, Chatham, was later charged with aggravated vehicle taking, driving while disqualified and without insurance. He admitted the offences when he appeared in Medway Magistrates’ Court in March and returned on May 21 to learn his fate.
Prosecutor Sidumiso Moyo told the court the vehicle had been taken from his friend’s address without permission.
“He had a key to his friend’s house, which had been given to him, so he had access to the vehicle and took the spare key,” she said. “He was disqualified from driving in 2007, and that [ban] is still in place, so he also had no insurance.”
The court heard a member of the public who witnessed the collision called the police, and when officers arrived in the area, the damaged Ford Ranger was found around the corner from the road.
Magistrates also heard the Ford Ranger’s owner had been a friend of Catt for about five years and trusted him. He’d owned the vehicle for about a year.
Ms Moyo said Catt has “a long history of previous convictions for driving-related offences.”
The court heard those included being disqualified from driving in 1990, taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent in 1992 and driving while disqualified again in 1994. He was also convicted of taking another vehicle without the owner’s consent in 1996 and was jailed for four years for other offences.
He was disqualified again in 2002, 2004 and in 2008 was convicted of drink driving. He has two convictions for excess alcohol and no insurance.
“In 2011, he was convicted of driving without insurance and in 2014 he was caught driving while disqualified and given four months’ custody,” the prosecutor said. “In 2016, he was caught driving again while disqualified and was given a community order and then in 2017, he was convicted of driving while disqualified and without insurance.”
Catt was jailed for 16 months in 2017 for perverting the course of justice after he lied under oath about who was behind the wheel during another driving while disqualified incident.
He was charged with battery in 2019.
Ms Moyo told the court: “He has an extensive history of driving with excess alcohol and while disqualified. You saw the driving. It was a deliberate manoeuvre; there was no breathalyser test, but there was something seriously wrong with the way he was driving.
“The starting point is a year’s custody, so it has passed the custody threshold, and he has still not taken an extended test as he is required to do so [to drive legally again]. There were also passengers in the vehicle, including a child, so this aggravates the offences and she [the child’s mother] hardly had time to take the child out of the car as he kept moving.”
Isaak Eliezer, defending, said his client had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and fully agreed with the case summary.
He added: “He took the truck and takes full responsibility. He called the police. He is a friend [the owner], and he had trusted him with the key to the car. He took the keys to find his daughter as she was lost and this is just to provide context; it’s not an excuse, it was a genuine emergency. His mental health had deteriorated, and it impaired his thinking and the accident. The suspension collapsed and threw him into the vehicle. The back and forth he does, it’s to move the vehicle, but the suspension snapped.”
The court also heard Catt had a difficult background, his mental health had been affected by the death of a family member, and he’d almost had a breakdown in 2005. Despite working most of his life, he was now claiming PIP and Universal Credit because of his mental health difficulties.
Magistrates told Catt he had endangered others by taking the vehicle key and driving, but despite his record, they were not going to jail him for the offences.
Instead, they placed him on an 18-month community order, which will see him complete 20 rehabilitation sessions, and he was also banned from driving again for another 12 months.
The chairman of the bench said: “You will definitely go to prison next time.”
Catt was also ordered to pay £300 compensation to the Ford Ranger’s owner for the distress he caused him by taking the vehicle and was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £114 as well as £85 court costs and will pay what he owes at a rate of £20 a month as he’s in receipt of benefits.