A gangland debt collector was today locked up for dodging penalty points in a speeding ticket scam.
Dad-of-three David Byron, 44, schemed with dodgy car rental business owner Benjamin Rood, 41, to swerve fixed penalty notices after being caught speeding in August 2016 and February 2017. Byron, of Longfellow Close, Kirkby, was driving Land Rover vehicles leased by Rood's franchise, 4x4 Hire Liverpool, on both occasions.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that as the rental vehicles were registered to Rood's business, he was obliged by law to provide the details of the driver. However, rather than Byron simply taking the points and paying the fine, WhatsApp messages recovered from Rood's phone revealed extensive conversations about nominating a "fall-guy".
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That resulted in two men, Barry Sissons and James Ryan, being convicted of speeding in magistrates' court and each being handed six penalty points and fines ranging between £600 and £900. James Rae, prosecuting, told the court that Rood and several other men had been jailed for money laundering and conspiring to pervert the course of justice in May, but Byron had not been involved in their wider offending.
During an investigation into Rood, the WhatsApp messages were obtained by police, and Byron later pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, while asking for the 2016 incident to be taken into consideration by the court. Mr Rae said Byron also had a previous conviction for a similar offence, which saw him handed a suspended sentence in August 2012.
Damian Nolan, defending, asked the court for "clemency" for his client due to his severe health problems. Mr Nolan said a report from a consultant haematologist, Dr Wells, described how Byron had received "extensive treatment" for blood cancer and was subject to regular testing.
Dr Wells' report said the condition put Byron at a high risk of stroke, cardiac seizures, and aneurysms, and that he had on several occasions been told to "drop everything" and come in for emergency treatment when alarming test results came back.
Mr Nolan suggested a prison environment would risk Byron not being able to access specialist treatment as quickly as needed. He also told the court: "The defendant himself has demonstrated that is capable of extensive rehabilitation. In the five years since these offences he has obtained respectable, gainful, lucrative and worthy employment that requires hard work and dedication."
Mr Nolan said Byron lives close to his three young children and is a "dedicated father". The also court heard how he had recently and unexpectedly lost his mum, and was living with his dad since her death.
In a further blow to the defendant, Mr Nolan said he was planning to marry his long-term partner, Maria Symes, on September 2, and had hoped to be free for their wedding day. Mr Nolan said: "This is a man who does not need telling it would have been so much simpler to simply take the points. For not taking a Fixed Penalty Notice here he is on the verge of a custodial sentence. It was his own stupid, reckless behaviour, impulsive maybe."
However Judge Denis Watson, QC, passing sentence, said the previous conviction for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice was a "gravely aggravating feature". He said he had "reflected hard" on the medical evidence, but that under principles established in case law he was unable to suspend the sentence.
Byron was jailed for 10 months, and will be eligible for release on licence at the half-way stage.
Byron hit headlines in 2015 when he stood trial over a brutal double shooting in Lance Close, Everton, which saw a man called Craig Dures shot in the face and his dad, Karl Dures senior, hit in the thigh. Miraculously, Karl survived the shooting.
Detectives soon learned the victims were targeted because of the actions of Craig's brother, drug-dealer Karl Dures junior, who had racked up enormous debts to heavy-duty gangsters. Byron was charged with the attempted murder of Craig Dures, and wounding both Craig and Karl snr with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, but denied he was the triggerman.
An extraordinary trial followed and Byron gave evidence admitting he was a debt-collector for "high end" drug dealers, and had been drafted in as an "intermediary" to try and get Karl jnr to make payments on an eyewatering £237,000 debt.
However he told the jury he was not in Lance Close at the time of the shooting and that "it would not have made sense" for him to shoot the victim, as it would leave him "wide open to owing their money". He was acquitted of all charges.
The trial judge, Clement Goldstone, QC, blasted Merseyside Police after the not guilty verdicts were announced for failing to test a vehicle linked to Byron for gunshot residue, and ignoring "abundant evidence" that it had been "doctored" after the shooting by being valeted and extensively cleaned.
Merseyside Police later launched an internal review which found "issues" in the way the "flawed" investigation was handled.
