Court / Man given prison term for drink driving offence

A DRINK-driver who only avoided hitting a pram with a two-year-old child in it through “good fortune” has been sent to prison.

Jaroslaw Jaworski hit four cars along Scalloway’s Main Street and Port Arthur road while more than five times the drink driving limit on 21 May at around 6.45pm.

A pedestrian had to take “evasive action” to stop Jaworski from hitting the pram they were pushing – which contained a two-year-old child – as he mounted the kerb.

The car passed the face of the pedestrian so closely that they could feel the heat off its engine, procurator Duncan Mackenzie said on Wednesday.

There was very nearly a “fatal outcome”, Lerwick Sheriff Court heard previously.

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank told 64-year-old Jaworski it was the worst example of dangerous driving he had ever heard of outside of a High Court case.

Jaworski, from Port Arthur, Scalloway, had admitted driving with 121 microgrammes of alcohol in 100ml of breath during the incident. The limit is 22 microgrammes.

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He pleaded guilty to driving dangerously during the incident, repeatedly mounting the kerb, skidding, almost hitting the pedestrian and their pram and scraping against three cars before colliding with a fourth.

Mackenzie said two people were so concerned by Jaworski’s driving that they followed him through Scalloway and eventually pulled the keys from his ignition when he crashed into a vehicle outside the Kiln Bar.

One of the concerned witnesses told a family walking with a small child to get out of the way when they saw Jaworski coming.

The court also heard that one witness had seen Jaworski’s head was down and not looking out of any of the windows as he scraped alongside vehicles.

It was “simply a matter of good fortune that there wasn’t a fatal outcome”, Mackenzie previously told the court.

The fiscal asked last month for the court to confiscate the vehicle Jaworski was using during the incident.

Defence agent Tommy Allan had previously said the car Jaworski was driving actually belonged to his partner, and argued that Jaworski would not have the use of it if it was not confiscated because he would be banned from driving anyway.

Returning for sentencing on Wednesday, Jaworski had to be recalled to the dock after Sheriff Cruickshank asked for more time to consider his sentence.

He raised concern about an aspect of a social work report on Jaworski in which he said he did not require help for his consumption of alcohol.

Allan said that, before Jaworski was in court for such an offence, he likely had some issue with alcohol.

And returning to the dock later, Jaworski said he was willing to seek help.

However the sheriff pointed out that Jaworski had a previous drink-driving conviction from 2018, and said this had been a very serious incident.

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He said it had been a “very worrying narration” of “one of the worst examples of dangerous driving that I have dealt with” in summary court.

Sheriff Cruickshank ordered Jaworski to spend 192 days in prison, and banned him from driving for four years and 96 days.

Jaworski will also have to sit the extended test of competence before getting his licence back.

Sheriff Cruickshank decided not to grant forfeiture of the car, as he said that would have been “disproportionate”.