A FATHER-of-four has avoided jail after dragging a woman across a road with a van after she tried to stop her husband from drink-driving.

Stuart Walker was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Monday (September 2) to one count of dangerous driving.

In July 2022, the 43-year-old, of Grove Street, East Challow, was seen ‘swerving over the road’ in a van in East Hanney.

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The victim believed her husband was driving so tried to pull the keys from the ignition when the van stopped at a red light but soon realised it was Walker in the driver’s seat and her husband was instead in the passenger seat.

He then pulled away, dragging the victim for a short period as her arm was still in the car attempting to remove the keys.

Judge Nigel Daly handed the driver an 18-month community order after deferring his sentence in March as a chance to prove he could engage with probation.

During the sentencing, it was heard that the victim and her daughter had gone out looking for her husband after worrying he may drink drive home.

They found his van ‘swerving’ in East Hanney and tried to beep and flash at the vehicle to get it to stop.

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At a junction, when the victim tried to get the keys from the ignition and spotted the men, she noted the car smelled like cannabis.

She was dragged for a ‘short period’ before the van sped away. They later found the van at home with her husband still inside but Walker absent.

The victim required hospital treatment for minor injuries.

She said the incident has ‘permanently altered her’ and considers it as ‘playing a part’ in the end of her relationship.

The court heard that, since the sentenced was deferred earlier this year, Walker has secured an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and has ‘demonstrated he can remain abstinent from drugs and alcohol’, his lawyer remarked.

Sentencing Walker, Judge Daly said: “I considered the appropriate sentence would have been 14 months imprisonment if I had not deferred.

“It was worth deferring for six months partially because you were on licence and partly because it would appear that you have turned a corner.

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“I wanted to check you were committed to it.”

Walker was on licence for a 28 month sentence handed to him in July 2022 for being concerned in the supply of cocaine and heroin.

The bricklayer was also ordered to complete 19 days of a specified programme, 20 rehabilitation activity days, and 80 hours of unpaid work.

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