A drug-driving, disqualified van driver gave another man’s details after he was involved in a crash in Bicester.

Usman Younis’ lie meant that the man he claimed to be – Umar Latif – was summonsed to court in October and told the magistrates the only truth he knew: that he was not the driver involved in the crash.

READ MORE: Private school teacher spared prison over sexual activity with boy pupil

The police officer investigating the case checked the innocent’s driving licence and was able to confirm that Mr Latif was not the driver arrested for drug-driving following the crash on the Wendlebury Interchange near Bicester on June 23 last year.

Checks on the Mercedes van that Younis, 30, was driving eventually led officers to the real driver, who presented himself at his local police station in Rochdale and came clean.

Mitigating, Grahame James told Oxford Crown Court on Friday (July 7) that it had been ‘pure luck’ for his client that the police officer’s technology had not been working when he was stopped, meaning that the false details were not checked against the database.

Despite being taken through all the procedures at Abingdon police station, they still did not find out Younis' real identity.

“It was a crime he would never have got away with,” Mr James said.

“He was always going to be discovered because the car was in his name.”

The barrister noted that his client had taken ‘ages to think of a date of birth’.

Younis, whose livelihood was transporting vehicles, tested positive at the roadside for cocaine. However, a blood sample given at the police station was tested and showed him to be twice the limit for cannabis only.

When Younis’ lie was discovered, he was charged with perverting the course of justice and drug driving.

READ MORE: Bicester area man jailed for rape of sleeping woman

Despite being banned from the roads at the time – after magistrates stripped him of his licence for totting up 12 penalty points – the police and Crown Prosecution Service had not charged him with disqualified driving.

This fact appeared to irk Judge Michael Gledhill KC, who asked the prosecutor: “What’s going on, Ms Aubrey-Fletcher?”

Alice Aubrey-Fletcher, for the Crown, replied: “I quite agree that this is a concern. I can only put it down to an error, which I know is very unsatisfactory.”

Younis, of Bentley Street, Rochdale, admitted perverting the course of justice and drug driving.

Judge Gledhill gave him 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, telling the young dad: “You’ve brought all this on yourself.”

He must do 150 hours of unpaid work and up to nine rehabilitation activity requirement days as part of the sentence.

For the drug driving matter, he was fined £500 and banned from driving for 15 months.