A young woman who crashed whilst driving without a licence has been jailed after trying to pin the blame on to her sister. She even forged her sister’s signature on police documents.
Pooja Solanki was driving along Uppingham Road in Leicester on October 4 last year when she swerved around a cyclist and smashed into another car.After stopping briefly, Solanki, who had been banned from driving after a motoring.
After stopping briefly, Solanki, who had been banned from driving after a motoring offence in December 2016, fled the scene without leaving her name but an eagle-eyed passer-by got her car’s registration.
Solanki aged 26 from, Humberstone, Leicester, received documents from the police, who intended to charge her with driving without due care and failing to stop at the scene of an accident, but she replied to the police stating her sister had been driving at the time.
During the hearing Solanki, who had been due to get married soon, was jailed for six months.
Her solicitor Michael Garvey tried to urge Judge Philip Head to suspend the sentence.
He said: “She was panicked into doing something very foolish. She’s extremely remorseful
“It doesn’t have to be an inevitable, immediate sentence of imprisonment.”
He said that her intent had been to stop her sick father, who she lives with, from finding out about what she had done and worrying about it.
But Judge Head said: “She is a serial liar, I’m afraid. She had no licence at the time, she had been involved in a road traffic accident and she forged her sister’s signature.”
Refering to recent high-profile cases of people being jailed for similar offences, he said: “There’s been so much publicity that nobody could fail to be aware how seriously this offence is regarded.
“In this case there are a series of really grave aggravating factors to a charge that is, in itself, serious.
