A MAN who tried pass off penalty points to a pal in a “Chris Huhne style” driving scam, has avoided jail.

Ashley Gibson, 24, talked loner David Warnes, 58, into taking the rap for three motoring offences in Southend, which included two car crashes and a speeding ticket.

The pair were rumbled after one of the crash victims told police the man involved in the collision was a young, athletic, mixed race man, who turned out to be Gibson, and not Warnes, who was a middle-aged, overweight white man.

The pair were both given community orders and not jail sentences, like former Government minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife Vicky Pryce, who were given eight months for perverting the course of justice after she took his speeding points on his behalf.

Basildon Crown Court heard yesterday Gibson’s MG collided with a Mercedes car in Southend on October 19 last year.

The incident was reported to police and they sent a form to Gibson asking who had been driving the car.

He sent back the form telling officers it was David Warnes, but when police showed the victim a DVLA picture of Warnes, they said it was a different person.

Warnes and Gibson were interviewed by police and admitted the scam.

They told officers Gibson feared if he got penalty points, he would lose his job.

At the hearing Gibson, of Burney Drive, in Loughton, admitted throwing a petrol bomb at a motorist during a road rage incident in Rayleigh Road, Eastwood, on August 10, 2013, and three counts of making off without payment for fuel.

The court heard Gibson’s offending stems from an alcohol and cocaine addiction.

Warnes agreed to the scam because he was a loner and had recently become friends with Gibson’s mum.

Gibson was handed a twoyear community order with a drug rehabilitation order.

Warnes, of Harecroft, Kings Lynn, was ordered to carry out 80 hours unpaid work.

Sentencing the pair, Judge William Graham, said: “These offences range from being unpleasant to serious, to perverting the course of justice.

“A lot of your (Gibson’s) offending stems from your problems with drugs and alcohol and a treatment order will help you address that.”