A banned driver has been jailed for using his partner’s motability car without her consent while she was with her seriously ill daughter in hospital.

David Hine’s licence had been revoked because he suffers from epilepsy and his girlfriend had told him specifically not to drive it while she was away. She needed it to take her disabled daughter to hospital.

The mother left the car at her home in the South Hams on June 16 this year when she took her daughter for specialist treatment at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. She was so worried that Hine may use it that she rang a neighbour to check it was still on her driveway.

She was told that it was missing and reported it as stolen to the police, who stopped and arrested Hine as he was driving it on June 26. It was the second time he had been caught driving since his licence was revoked so he was also a disqualified driver and had no insurance.

He was also subject to a suspended sentence for a fraud at a filling station at South Brent where he had fiddled £14,400 in bogus refunds to fund a cocaine habit.

Hine, aged 35, of Creber Drive, Wrangaton, admitted taking a vehicle without consent, driving while disqualified and uninsured and breaking a suspended sentence order and was jailed for a total of 13 months and disqualified for a year after his release by Recorder Mr Richard Paige at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him he had reoffended by driving without a licence just 13 days after the suspended sentence was passed and again five weeks later by taking the car when his partner had told him expressly not to do so.

He said: “It was a motability vehicle for her disabled daughter and was crucial for her transport. Your licence was withdrawn because of the risk of you having a fit or a blackout, so you posed a significant risk to yourself, other road users and of damaging a vehicle used by for disabled person.”

Miss Emily Pitts, prosecuting, said Hine received the ten months suspended sentence on April 15 this year, caught driving without a licence on April 28, and disqualified for six months by magistrates shortly afterwards.

His partner and her disabled daughter went to Great Ormond Street on June 16 and discovered from a neighbour that the car was missing on June 21, reporting it to police the next day after calling Hine and getting a ‘brazen’ reply.

He was pulled over on June 26 and told police ‘I put my hands up, I’m an idiot. I did it because I’m stupid.’.

Miss Pitts said Hine also missed a series of probation meetings and was about to be breached for non-cooperation when he was arrested.

Miss Rebecca Wood, defending, said none of the new offences would have merited a jail sentence if Hine were not in breach of the suspended sentence. She said he had been complying with a drug rehabilitation order and his last two test results are negative.