150mph joyride in Rolls on eve of wedding lands British PIO in jail in UK

LONDON: A British Indian with family roots in Punjab has been imprisoned for 12 months for filming himself driving a Rolls-Royce at 150mph on the eve of his wedding.Harmanpreet Singh Basainty (26), who lives in Swansea and helps run a family business of convenience stores in Wales with his parents, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court to dangerous driving and committing an act with intent to pervert the course of justice.On Nov 12 he was sentenced to 12 months in prison, disqualified from driving for three years and ordered to sit an extended retest. The family business, Basainty Property and Development, was ordered to pay £1,000 costs.The court heard that Basainty took a video of himself driving at 150mph down the A449 dual carriageway near Raglan in Monmouthshire which has a 50mph-70mph speed limit, on Sept 6 last year.He had three cousins in the car who were laughing and joking during the ride, the South Wales Argus reported.Basainty posted a video of the joyride onto Facebook and upon seeing it, members of the public reported him to GoSafe, the Wales Road Casualty Reduction Partnership.When a notice of intended prosecution was sent to him, he claimed that Abdul Sayed, who worked at a car valet service, was the driver. However a police investigation determined that Basainty was the driver.Basainty’s family come from Chakar, in Jagraon tehsil, Ludhiana. Basainty has a previous conviction for dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking from 2019 when he stole his brother-in-law’s Mercedes in order to impress a girl on their first date and later drove it at 130mph during a police chase.Judge Daniel Williams said: “You appear to have learned nothing from your last appearance before the crown court.”