A plumber has escaped a a six-month driving ban after sympathetic magistrates in Worcester Magistrate Court spared him due to the nature of his work.
The Worcester News reported that Lee Garratt was caught speeding four a fourth time, earning him the 12 points on his license that would trigger a ban. He was driving his Ford Transit 7mph over the 50mph speed limit on the A449 because, he said, he was late for work.
A court clerk was quoted as saying: “You were late so you put your foot down a little bit?”
Garrett admitted speeding, and explained that he was a self-employed plumber carrying out work in an area from Liverpool to London.
“My business is solely me,” Worcester News reported Garratt saying in court. “I don’t know anything else apart from plumbing. Without my van, I won’t be able to work.”
He also said that he’d been struggling with his mental health and was going through a costly separation from his wife. Continuing in his job, he said, was necessary to pay his own bills and maintain the home of his wife and only child, a daughter.
After establishing that a ban would affect not just Garratt but also his family, the magistrates conferred on the merits of his testimony.
Speaking for the magistrates bench, chairman Roger Warrington told the defendant that they had taken his special circumstances under consideration.
“In view of your mental health and anxiety and the hardship [to Garratt’s wife] and inability to pay household expenses [if Garratt lost his job] we do find exceptional hardship,” reported Worcester News.
“You are not going to be able to use these reasons again. You have got to stay within the speed limit – you should have been before.”
Lee Garratt was fined £120 and ordered to pay £34 victim surcharge and costs of £90.
Source article can be viewed here.
