AN Ilminster heroin addict has been jailed for four months after driving while disqualified.

Stephen Taylor, 27, of West Crescent, Ilminster was in the passenger seat of a green BMW that pulled into a Tesco petrol station on October 15 last year, but despite being disqualified from driving until 2018, proceeded to get into the driver's side of the car and pulled away before being stopped by the police only a few hundred yards down the road.

Harry Ahuja, prosecuting, said: "The police were alerted by a shop worker at the petrol station who witnessed the unusual behaviour and noted the man looked unfit to drive."

Taunton Crown Court heard that Taylor, who appeared via video link from Exeter prison, was already on a suspended sentence for assaulting his partner in a dispute over money for drugs in February last year.

Although the defendant had not pressed charges, a neighbour who intervened witnessed the assault in which Taylor punched the victim and held her to the ground, the court heard.

Partick Mason, defending, said Taylor had returned to substance abuse following a break-up with his partner.

Sentencing, Judge Partick said: "It is a great shame you did not take more heed of your drugs rehabilitation order. "I must in this activate the battery sentence, and add a further two month sentence for driving while disqualified."

Taylor is disqualified from driving until 2018 and will have to take an extended retest.

Having already been asked to 'sit down and keep quiet' following one outburst from the public gallery, Taylor's partner shouted an expletive as she left the courtroom.