A BANNED driver, jailed for using a car to visit his sick mother, must stay behind bars.

Nigel Coulthurst, 35, jailed for four months by Burnley magistrates, was told by a judge the sentence was "perfectly correct".

Judge Raymond Bennett, sitting with two magistrates, said Coulthurst had been given an 18-month probation order in January for driving while disqualified, and had now got behind the wheel while banned for the third time.

He said: "People must understand when they are disqualified by order of the court, that it means what it says." Coulthurst, of Sultan Street, Accrington, had appealed against sentence after being convicted at Burnley Crown Court. The court heard he was banned for three years in August 1997, under the totting up procedure.

Andrew Lawson, defending, said on the day of the offence, Coulthurst's mother had been ill and rang him. He added: "Either out of panic, or to get there as quickly as possible, he committed the offence."

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