King to be sentenced for dangerous driving

FORMER PREMIER LEAGUE footballer Marlon King is due to be sentenced today for dangerous driving after a three-car crash left a motorist with a broken arm.

The ex-Sheffield United striker admitted a charge of dangerous driving at Nottingham Crown Court in March.

He committed the offence on his 33rd birthday while driving a Porche Panamera on the A46 in Nottinghamshire last April.

The 35-year-old victim was airlifted to hospital after the collision at Winthorpe, near Newark, on the afternoon of April 26.

King, of Torkey, Lincolnshire, is without a club after he was released by League One side Sheffield United in December.

The Jamaican international's previous clubs include Gillingham, Nottingham Forest, Watford, Wigan, Coventry City and Birmingham City.

He has a number of previous convictions including violence against women, dishonesty, drink driving and other motoring offences.

In 2010, King lost a Court of Appeal challenge against a conviction for groping a young woman and then breaking her nose after she spurned his advances.

The player, who was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in October 2009, had his application for permission to appeal rejected by three judges in London in December 2010.

They said the prosecution had a "strong" case against King and ruled: "We have no doubt that this conviction is safe."

During his trial, London's Southwark Crown Court heard that the striker, who had been celebrating his wife's pregnancy and scoring a winning goal earlier, launched an "unprovoked" attack after repeatedly being "cold-shouldered" by women in the Soho Revue Bar in December 2008.

King claimed he was the victim of "mistaken identity".

But a jury convicted him by a 10-2 majority of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old university student, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, and causing her actual bodily harm.

Dangerous driving carries a maximum sentence of two years' imprisonment.

Ordering an interim driving ban, Judge Nigel Godsmark QC told King at the last hearing that he could make "no promises" that he would avoid a custodial sentence.

King, who is on unconditional bail, will be sentenced this afternoon at Nottingham Crown Court.

By Emma Sword, Press Association