Labour peer jailed for texting while driving

LONDON (Reuters) - Labour's Lord Ahmed was jailed for 12 weeks on Wednesday for dangerous driving after he admitted sending text messages before a fatal crash on the M1 motorway.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that Ahmed, a prominent Muslim peer, had sent and received five messages while driving at 60 mph along the motorway near Rotherham in South Yorkshire on Christmas Day in 2007.

Shortly afterwards, his Jaguar car was involved in a collision with an Audi driven by Slovakian Martyn Gombar, 28.

The court heard that the peer had finished the text message exchange before the accident and that he was not to blame for the crash with the Audi in which Gombar was killed.

Gombar had been drinking and had ploughed minutes earlier into the central reservation, leaving his car facing the wrong way across the two outer lanes of the motorway in total darkness, the court was told.

Ahmed had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at an earlier hearing, the Press Association reported.

"I have come to the conclusion that by reason of the prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous driving for which you have pleaded guilty, only an immediate custodial sentence can be justified," said the judge, Justice Wilkie.

The peer's lawyer Steve Smith said his client was being "very philosophical" about the sentence and approaching it with "great dignity".

Smith said he would be appealing against the sentence.