A JUDGE said there is “no point” in locking up a serial car criminal caught drink driving while banned from the roads.

James Daniel Lettice, 49, is a “menace to everyone else on the road and who pays their insurance,” York Magistrates Court heard.

He  has more than 200 convictions, many of them for car-related and road crime and had already been disqualified for at least a 17-year stretch before his latest court appearance.

He has also long avoided taking an extended driving test that, if passed, would have enabled him to drive legally.

The court heard he was more than twice the drink drive limit when he was caught behind the wheel on a city centre road earlier this year.

Lettice, who gave his address as Foss Basin, off Fishergate, York, pleaded guilty to drink driving, driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance.

Deputy district judge Nick Hayles told York Magistrates' Court: “I can see no point in sending this man to prison.”

He told Lettice: “You are getting too old for this. I am sorry you have had bad times, but it is unfair to inflict them on other people.”

He gave Lettice a 12-month community order with 10 days’ rehabilitative activities and 100 hours’ unpaid work. Lettice was banned from driving for another five years and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £114 statutory surcharge.

Earlier the judge had told Lettice: “You are a menace to everyone else on the roads who pays for insurance.”

York Magistrates Court heard that Lettice was stopped by police in Lowther Terrace on January 21 this year. A breath test gave a reading of 82 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

He was disqualified from driving at the time and because of that could not get car insurance.

Liam Hassan gave no mitigation other than to refer to a probation officer’s pre-sentence report and to say that Lettice lives on universal credit after the judge said he would not jail Lettice.

In 2021, York Magistrates Court heard that Lettice had been continuously banned from the roads for 17 years at that point.

He had initially been banned from 2004 for aggravated taking of a vehicle without consent and had completed the ban.

But he had also been ordered to take an extended driving test before being allowed to drive alone again and had not taken the test. He had therefore continued to be disqualified from driving.