A persistent motoring offender who drove through a red light and gave police officers the chase through the streets of Oldham has finally been jailed – after giving multiple reasons why he could not be sent to prison.
Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard Rahan Alam was spotted by officers in an unmarked car going through the traffic light on Oldham Road and mounted a pavement of a residential street in a desperate attempt to get away.
The 34-year-old was able to escape from officers temporarily but was found in a car park on Lees Road where he denied being the driver involved.
He was breathalysed during the incident in September last year and found to have 81 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.
When arrested he claimed he was his twin brother, but before he was charged he admitted who he really was.
Alam appeared in court to be sentenced after admitting to dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and driving over the legal limit.
Prosecutor Claire Thomas revealed he had numerous road related convictions, including one from November 2019 when he pulled up at Tottington Services and it emerged he was under the influence of alcohol.
He asked the staff member at the counter for alcohol and then got into another van before getting back into his own vehicle.
She added that he had not been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice for lying about who he was because he had corrected officers.
Alam had been due to be sentenced earlier this year but claimed a heart condition which meant he could not serve a custodial sentence.
The court heard this issue had been resolved, but defence counsel Steven Sullivan asked for him to be spared jail as he had a child who had been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum who he cared for while his wife went to work.
He said: “The whole family as a unit will suffer.
“Clearly there were issues with drink at the time.
“He is asking you not to punish his family for his mistakes but to punish him.”
But judge Angela Nield rejected this.
She said: “You have a frankly appalling record.
“You are a persistent and apparently unrepentant offender in respect of offences of this nature.”
She said she had considered his family circumstances but also had to consider the lack of a “realistic prospect of rehabilitation” as well as her “public duty” to protect the public.
She said of his family: “You can’t continue to use them an excuse for your dereliction of your duty towards them.”
The judge jailed Alam, of Eric Street in Oldham, for eight months and banned him from the roads for 36 months.
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