Estate agent ditched £100k BMW after M56 crash - but says he wasn't drinking

An estate agent who ditched his BMWafter crashing it on a motorway got his wife to pick him up instead of contacting the police.

Scott Morgan, 46, was making his way home from work when he lost control of his £100,000 electric i7 M Sport and smashedinto the barrier on the M56 on March 7. Policesaid they only knew about the disaster because the car's automatic accident detection system sent an SOS call. If the police had been alerted sooner then they would have carried out a breathalyser test. However, Morgan, who has a history of drink-driving offences, says he wasn't under the influence of alcohol.

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Chester Magistrates' Court heard how a patrolman found debris on the motorway and the car dumped on the hard shoulder, its back end slightly protruding into lane one. Officers later attended Morgan's gated £1.4m home in Hale, but the property was in darkness and his mobile phone was switched off.

When Morgan attended a police station two days later he claimed a recovery vehicle, alerted by the SOS call, had turned up at the scene to move the wreckage into the hard shoulder. He said he had been waiting for officers to arrive and left in the assumption they would have been alerted by the SOS device on the car.

He denied drinking alcohol in the run up to the crash and insisted: ''I waited for the police but they did not show up and I made my way away from the scene." Officers said he would have been breathalysed had he stayed at the roadside, reports Manchester Evening News.

Police were summoned on March 7 to reports of a car smash on the junction 15 slip road of the M56, at Stoak, Chester, 28 miles from Morgan's home. Lisa McGuire, prosecuting, said: "Officer Gleave attended the location and identified the vehicle which was positioned half on the hard shoulder protruding slightly into lane one.

"The vehicle had heavy crash damage to the front end. It had collided with a barrier on the nearside and had left a trail of debris travelling from one lane into the hard shoulder where the vehicle had come to rest."

Ms McGuire described how the crash resulted in debris strewn across the motorway. Oncoming traffic was forced to avoid the back end of the defendant's vehicle which was protruding slightly onto the road. The court heard Morgan's identification was found inside the abandoned vehicle, with police concerned its injured driver may have wandered off and a helicopter was scrambled to search nearby. Officers attended his gated address which was in darkness, and Morgan didn't respond to several calls and messages made by police to his phone, which was switched off.

The prosecution said police were not contacted by Morgan until two days later, March 9, when he confirmed he was the vehicle's driver. Ms McGuire added: ''He said he had left the scene because the police had failed to attend. He also stated he was unaware that he had to report to police. The vehicle was a complete write-off and left significant damage on the road. The offence was committed in circumstances where a request for a breath sample would certainly have been made.''

The court heard Morgan was also charged with an offence of causing a vehicle to be left in a dangerous position, but it was withdrawn by prosecutors. A probation worker, who quizzed Morgan, told the court he had been driving home from work after a stressful week. Travelling in the middle lane of the motorway, he was about to turn onto his exit when his car began to spin and he "lost control and crashed into the barrier".

The court heard Morgan was knocked unconscious in the collision, and when he woke up the recovery service was already there and they moved the car to the hard shoulder. He then claimed to have called his wife who collected him and they made their way to a family member's house, who is a nurse, to check him over as he has a "bad relationship" with hospitals.

The probation worker said Morgan didn't know he needed to report the accident as his was the only vehicle involved, and was when contacted by police he was "honest at the first opportunity". Morgan's lawyer Marc McCormick said when he spoke to police 48 hours later he was "fully cooperative" and had they arrived before he left the scene, he would have been in a position to comply with the request for a breath test.

He said his client had expressed remorse and was naïve, and misunderstood his responsibilities when he failed to report the crash. Morgan pleaded guilty to failing to report an accident and was sentenced to a 12 months community order with a single requirement he completes 200 hours of unpaid work. The estate agent who runs the Move Residentials agency in Liverpool, has two previous drink related driving convictions.

He was told to pay £199 in costs and surcharge and was banned from driving for six months. He had faced up to six months jail under sentencing guidelines. The court heard Morgan had convictions for drink driving in 2005, and failing to provide a sample in 2018, and also had nine points on his driving licence for three separate speeding matters dating back to July 2023.

In sentencing JP Olga Randall said: “Because we are aware this is a very very serious offence the severity is going to be reflected in our sentence. This has definitely crossed the community order guidelines.”