AN uninsured driver has been banned from driving for six months after he crashed into parked cars while behind the wheel of a friend's car.

Benjamin Thomas Clark, 29, had previously been falsely accused of taking the car that he was driving without permission and spent nearly six months charged with the offence before police learnt the truth.

In reality, the owner of the car was sitting in the vehicle with him.

Clark, of Prospect Walk, Camblesforth, pleaded guilty to careless driving, driving without insurance and driving without a licence.

York magistrates fined him £250, ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £25 statutory surcharge and banned him from driving for six months.

The car's owner Paul Anthony Mountford, 32, also of Prospect Walk, Camblesforth, appeared before York Crown Court last month.

He was given an eight-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months on condition he did 200 hours' unpaid work in January for perverting the course of justice and permitting uninsured driving. He also got seven points on his licence after admitting both offences.

York Crown Court heard how on May 24 last year both men had been at the home of Clark's child, who was ill. Clark had wanted to buy some Calpol.

Mountford couldn't drive because he had been drinking, and allowed Clark to take his car with him as a passenger.

But, on the way, Clark hit the parked cars in Brigg Lane, Camblesforth. According to Mountford's barrister Victoria Smith-Swain, Clark suggested that Mountford tell the police he hadn't agreed to Clark driving.

Mountford did so, and Clark was arrested and charged. He attended court twice before Mountford eventually did tell the truth and the charge of taking the car without consent was dropped in November.

Clark denied a charge of dangerous driving. But when the case appeared before York magistrates for trial, the prosecution dropped the charge after he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving.