Tony Leigh Davis pleads guilty to repeat drugged, unlicenced driving charges

For nine months a Toowoomba man ignored multiple court orders banning him from getting behind the wheel of a car. Worse still, he did so while in the throes of meth addiction.

Tony Leigh Davis sobbed as the police prosecutor read out the full list of his offending in what was described not as a fall from grace, but a crash to earth.

The 31-year-old man pleaded guilty in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Tuesday to 19 offences that mostly consisted of drug driving, driving while disqualified and evading police, from November 2, 2020 to July 9 of this year.

Police prosecutor Jacquelyn Miller said the most serious offence occurred on March 10 when Davis evaded police twice in one day on Ramsay Street and Ruthven Street.

She added that Davis showed reckless disregard for court orders.

“He knows he shouldn’t be driving, but he continues to drive,” Sergeant Miller said.

Acting for the defence, solicitor Matt Gemmell said Davis had been relatively crime free until his life went off the rails after a divorce in 2019.

This led to an addiction to methamphetamine.

“He was a happy working dad in a happy relationship, and sobriety was the norm in his life,” Mr Gemmell said.

The court heard Davis suffered from a range of mental health issues that required a cocktail of medications to rein in.

“What we have seen is a crash to earth, not a fall from grace,” Mr Gemmell said.

The court heard that at one point Davis sold his car and about $10,000 worth of tools to feed his addiction which has in turn made it difficult to hold a job.

The one glimmer of hope Mr Gemmell offered was that it appeared Davis had turned a corner midway through the year.

“Since that time my client has gone cold turkey and rarely drinks – he is proudly clean and remains so,” he said.

“He is deeply remorseful, and he is quite often moved to tears.”

Magistrate Graham Lee took about an hour and half to craft a sentence and said it was one of the most complicated places before him in recent years.

Davis was issued with two mandatory fines totalling $13,780 for evade offences and was further disqualified from holding a driver’s licence for seven years.

Mr Lee ordered six months in jail with immediate parole along with concurrent lesser suspended jail terms and an 18-month period of probation.