A man has been banned from driving for three years and handed a 14 month sentence in a young offenders’ institute after being caught driving for nine miles the wrong way on the M25 and the A2 in Kent.
Mitchell Locke, 20, will need to take an extended driving test before he is allowed to get behind the wheel again. Locke, from Bourne Park Close in Kenley, South London, was sentenced on Friday 30 January at Dartford and Gravesham Magistrates Court. He had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving having been caught on Highway Agency CCTV driving his black BMW 120d anti-clockwise, on the clockwise section of the clockwise M25.
Watch the footage below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOHYpwNQ7c
Kent Police Sergeant Rob Dell from the Roads Policing Team said: “Shortly before 2:30pm on 4 September, our force control room began receiving reports of a vehicle driving the wrong way on the M25, near junction four. People were calling 999 to tell us drivers were having to move out of the way of the ongoing car.”
The vehicle came off the motorway at junction three, the Swanley Interchange, then rejoined the carriageway and continued the wrong way to junction two. Still against the flow of traffic, the BMW came off at the Darenth Interchange and continued the wrong way by heading east, towards Canterbury, on the Londonbound A2. The car exited at the busy Bean Interchange, heading into oncoming traffic trying to join the A2. Finally, on the sliproad at 2:39pm, the BMW collided with a Suzuki Swift and a Nissan Leaf.
Dell added: “For around 10 minutes, Locke travelled the wrong direction on a major motorway and a major dual-carriageway. Where there was no hard shoulder he would move out into the live carriageway into oncoming traffic. It is remarkable there were no serious injuries.”
