‘Beyond stupid’ Gympie mum caught buying durries on disqualified licence

“You’re going out to get cigarettes for your friend? Really? It’s beyond stupid,” Magistrate Chris Callaghan told Steevie Lee O’Toole, 35, after asking her why he shouldn’t send her to jail.

Steevie Lee O'Toole, 35, narrowly avoided jail time after pleading guilty to driving on a banned licence to get her mate some cigarettes.

A Gympie mum who drove to a service station to get her mate some cigarettes on a disqualified licence has been warned she will go to jail if she steps out of line over the next two years.

Steevie Lee O’Toole, 35, represented herself in the Gympie Magistrates Court last Thursday (August 5) after police caught her behind the wheel after an attempted getaway on Stanley St on May 9.

The court heard police were doing patrols at about 1am on that date when they noticed O’Toole driving southbound on the Bruce Highway, before going left and heading onto Excelsior Rd.

Steevie Lee O'Toole, 35, narrowly avoided jail time after pleading guilty to driving on a banned licence to get her mate some cigarettes.

O’Toole “accelerated quickly” and tried to turn again onto Stanley St, but was intercepted and told police she had been at the service station to get cigarettes for a friend.

Regional news at the heart of our best journalism

Prosecuting Sergeant Michael Phillips said O’Toole told police she “knew she shouldn’t have been driving” at the time.

She would fail to show up to the police station to identify particulars nine days later, Sgt Phillips said, and would on a later date be found in the passenger seat of another car, leading to her arrest.

Magistrate Chris Callaghan noted previous convictions for disqualified driving, and a previous suspended sentence on O’Toole’s seven-page criminal history.

“Why shouldn’t you go to jail?” Mr Callaghan asked her.

An emotional O’Toole replied that she was a mother of two who was looking after her sick grandmother while her mother worked long hours at a local hospital

“You’re going out to get cigarettes for your friend? Really? It’s beyond stupid,” Mr Callaghan said.

O’Toole pleaded guilty to disqualified driving and failing to provide identifying particulars to police, with Mr Callaghan noting she was also on parole.

O’Toole was sentenced to six months' jail suspended for two years, and banned from driving for two years.

“If you breach it you have to serve the whole term,” Mr Callaghan said.