Motorist banned after M6 Toll U-turn

A POLISH driver did a U-turn in the middle of the M6 Toll before careering up the hard shoulder in the wrong direction during rush hour, a court heard.

Damion Czarnocki has been banned from getting behind the wheel for 12 months.

He drove in the wrong direction for four miles between junction six Brownhills and junction seven for the A34 Walsall Road.

Magistrates heard how Czarnocki was part of a five-strong convoy of rental cars being delivered from a company in Manchester to the south. However, the 20-year-old's boss summoned him back to the office unexpectedly and he lost the four other cars and ended up on the toll road by mistake.

Realising he was going in the wrong direction and that he had no money to pay the toll, Czarnocki did a U-turn in lanes one ond two as he approached the booths at junction six.

Mrs Sonia Durrant-Clarke, prosecuting, said he then travelled in the wrong direction along the hard shoulder. Police were alerted to his Skoda travelling the wrong way on August 23 at 7.45am and sent a patrol car.

Mrs Durrant-Clarke said he had only been in the country for a few days and his English was not very good. Czarnocki, of Oxford Road, Manchester, admitted the charge of dangerous driving at Fenton Magistrates Court yesterday.

In mitigation, Mr Andrew Bennett said Czarnocki did not want to be on that part of the road. "He found himself near the toll booth and turned around," he said.

Magistrates disqualified him from driving for 12 months, ordered him to take part in 80 hours of community service and pay court costs of £85.