AN AIR ambulance pilot who lied to avoid a driving ban has been jailed for four months for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Plymouth Crown Court was told that on February 6, Joseph Drury was caught on a mobile speed camera on the A374 Embankment Road in Plymouth doing a speed of 63mph in a 40mph limit in his Audi A6.

Expecting penalty points, and fearing he would be banned under the totting-up process – because he believed he already had nine penalty points on his licence – Drury claimed that the person driving had been an Icelandic woman and not him.

But he had just six points on his licence, and would not have been banned after all.

The court was told that Drury believed the Safety Camera Partnership would not pursue the matter if the driver was now abroad, but it did, and the woman received a letter.

She then went to the British embassy in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik to protest her innocence, saying she had not visited the UK for three years, and feared she could be in trouble if she returned.

Drury, aged 27, of Citadel Road, Plymouth, was contacted again, but continued to insist that he had not been the driver.

He later falsified his flying log book to try to prove he was in the air on that day, but the aircraft which he claimed to have been flying was grounded and undergoing servicing at the time.

Robert Linford, for Drury, told the court his client was a man of impeccable character who had behaved stupidly while under great pressure.

His flights were often undertaken at short notice in congested airspace, and he was under pressure to get patients whose lives were in danger to hospital very quickly. Drury's pilot's licence had been suspended and his career swept away, he said.

Drury's father told the court his son was disgusted with himself and felt he had let down the whole family.

The judge, Recorder Martin Meeke QC, told Drury: "Conduct such as yours is capable of undermining public justice and confidence in our system, and will not be tolerated."

Jailing him for four months, he said it saddened him to do it but the punishment must meet the offence.