A MUM from Stourport had her 'unmeritorious' appeal against a speeding ticket thrown out by a judge and was hit with £450 costs on top of her original fine.

 

A BMW was clocked being driven at 38mph in the B4193 Hartlebury Road, Stourport which has a 30mph speed limit.

 

Registered keeper Hazel Whittingham had admitted she was driving by returning the section 172 notice.

 

Her appeal was based on her argument that she had misinterpreted the dates when filling in the form and could not be sure whether it was her or her partner driving.

 

Whittingham of The Grove, Stourport represented herself at the hearing at Worcester Crown Court on Friday before Nicolas Cartwright QC and the two magistrates who sentenced in the original case.

 

The speeding offence took place at around 10am on May 27 last year.

 

A section 172 notice dated June 1 was sent out to Whittingham at her home address. Whittingham, who identified herself as the driver, opted to complete a safety awareness course although the speed was deemed too high for her to be eligible.

 

Whittingham said she was ‘exhausted’ at the time the notice was received, working full time with a two hour commute each day to Wolverhampton and averaging three to four hours sleep a night.

 

She said she took June 1 to be the date of the speeding offence rather than the date of issue which led to her wrongly identifying herself as the driver.

 

She also said the ticket office had sent her a photo of the wrong car – a Peugeot 307.

 

The product manager for Yale, who produced character references, told the judge: “There should be no reason to doubt my integrity. I wish I had not misinterpreted the dates.”

 

Jamie Scott, prosecuting, said the date of the offence was in bold on the form.

 

When he asked her if it was her speeding on May 27 she said: “I don’t know. I really honestly don’t know. If I knew it was me I would accept liability.”

 

She called her partner, Ryan Alexander, as a witness who said it was ‘fifty fifty’ as to which of them was driving on the day.

 

But Judge Cartwright rejected the appeal. He said the speed van would have been ‘incredibly obvious to anyone driving past’.

 

And when the couple claimed roadworks in the area might have prevented them seeing the van. Judge Cartwright said this could be deemed an aggravating feature and not mitigation.

 

He added it was ‘impossible’ that two people could forget who was driving when it had been an 'unusual day'.

 

Whittingham was off work and the couple had landscape gardeners working at their home.

 

He said the original three point penalty and £250 fine would stand but she was also instructed to pay £450 costs of 'bringing an unmeritorious appeal'.