Peer Who Texted In Car Jailed For 12 Weeks
Lord Ahmed has been jailed for 12 weeks for dangerous driving after sending and receiving text messages from his car on a motorway.
Lord Ahmed arrives at court for a previous hearing
The 51-year-old peer pleaded guilty to driving dangerously on the M1 near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, on Christmas Day last year.
His Jaguar later hit an Audi which had stopped in the fast lane of the motorway in an incident which killed Slovakian Martyn Gombar.
But the judge at Sheffield Crown Court made it clear the text messaging had finished before the accident happened and was not connected to the fatal incident.
Mr Justice Wilkie said the exchange of messages with a journalist amounted to a conversation, which took place as the peer was travelling at around 60mph over a 17.8-mile stretch of the southbound carriageway.
The accident in which 28-year-old Mr Gombar died happened close to junction 35 of the motorway.
He had crashed his Audi minutes earlier and is thought to have been trying to retrieve his mobile phone from the vehicle when it was hit.
Subsequent tests showed he had been drinking and crashed his car into the central reservation, spinning it round.
As Lord Ahmed approached the Audi, it was facing the wrong way, straddling the two outermost lanes in total darkness.
But the judge said the peer's text message conversation ended 1.86 miles, or two minutes, before the collision.
He told Lord Ahmed: "It is of the greatest importance that people realise what a serious offence dangerous driving of this type is."
He concluded: "I have come to the conclusion that by reason of the prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous driving for which you have pleaded guilty, only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified."
After jailing him, the judge also imposed a one-year driving ban and ordered the peer to pay £500 prosecution costs.
Lord Ahmed, who lives in Rotherham, has undertaken a number of high-profile roles for the Government.
These include negotiating with the president of Sudan to help secure the release of Liverpool teacher Gillian Gibbons.
He will serve half of his 12-week sentence.
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