Cleveland painter drives while court disqualified 9 times in 4 years

A southeast Queensland painter and serial unlicensed driver may have his cars crushed by the government and could face months behind bars should he dare drive again.

The partner of a painter declared a habitual traffic offender raced out of a court in tears when a magistrate stated the best thing for him might just be “a short sharp period of imprisonment”.

The distraught woman returned to court to learn that her partner Jeremy Thomas Cunningham, 48, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment with immediate parole for the next six months.

Appearing at the Cleveland Magistrates Court yesterday Cleveland man Cunningham pleaded guilty to yet another count of driving while disqualified by a court order.

The court heard Cunningham, who runs his own painting company, was pinched by police on Smith Street in Cleveland on March 6.

It comes after a shocking history of driving while disqualified by a court which included three such offences in 2016, two of which committed while testing positive to a drug.

In 2017 he was convicted of driving while disqualified by a court four times, one of which while testing positive to drugs.

And on November 27 last year he drove while banned by a court yet again and was sentenced to a three-month suspended jail term, which was activated yesterday and will run concurrent with his six-month sentence.

Magistrate Deborah Vasta said the man’s horrific traffic history, which included being banned from driving in NSW until 2034 (since quashed according to the defendant), started in 1994 when he failed to stop after an accident while driving without a licence.

“You need to get it in your head that if a court tells you not to do something, you don’t do it,” magistrate Vasta said.

“If you drive again … you can pack your toothbrush; you will go to jail”.

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The court was told due to the man’s serial offending his vehicles may also be crushed by the Queensland Government.

Defence solicitor Rhys Foster said the seriousness of the offending and its significant history had finally sunk in with his client who had recently completed the Queensland Traffic Offenders Program.

Mr Foster said the man had driven to hospital with a broken hand on March 6 but stated it was not for an emergent reason.

Cunningham will next be able to apply for his licence in Queensland on January 12, 2024.