Disqualified drivers targeted

POLICE are today targeting disqualified drivers throughout east Suffolk as part of a campaign codenamed Operation Endurance.

The initiative is aimed at people who commit the most crime and cause the most misery to residents.

Police launched the campaign in partnership with other criminal justice agencies to ensure persistent offenders are dealt with in a more effective and prompt manner.

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Phil Aves said: "We know that many of our persistent offenders have been banned from driving, having previously committed other offences, so the arrest of disqualified drivers can have many positive effects."

Disqualified drivers are those who have been banned from driving after being caught committing other motoring offences which could have put innocent motorists at risk, such as drink driving, dangerous driving, excessive speeding or driving without a licence.

In the past week six people who have been stopped in Felixstowe, Leiston, Woodbridge, Lowestoft and Beccles, have subsequently been charged with disqualified driving.

They include a 33-year-old man from Lowestoft, a 58-year-old man from Lowestoft, a 19-year-old man from Felixstowe, a 21-year-old man from Felixstowe, a 19-year-old man from Ipswich and a 22-year old man from Saxmundham.

Mr Aves said: "These people are blatantly ignoring the sentence of the courts by continuing to drive when they have been banned. When they are caught and put before the courts again they face a prison sentence and/or a substantial fine.

"But targeting disqualified drivers is just one of the measures we are using as part of Operation Endurance in the east of the county. So far officers have arrested ten people on warrant and further work is planned for the coming weeks."

Anyone with information about those driving when disqualified, should call Suffolk Police on 01473 613500.