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| News Story 20. | News Headlines. |
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| This Article was written by Tom Kelly... it was publish in Britain on 12th. May, 2006... by 'The Daily Mail'. | |
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A speedy route to jail... |
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| Nurse caught in camera trap pretended to be her former sister-in-law. |
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| When a speed camera snapped Joy Rees driving 11mph over the limit, she faced a maximum £60 fine and three points on her licence. But, desperate to avoid the punishment, the mother of one spent six months forging details on official forms in an attempt to pass the blame on to her former sister-in-law, who lives in America. |
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| The ruse backfired spectacularly when yesterday... almost a year after committing the minor traffic offence... she was jailed for six months for perverting the course of justice. |
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| Rees, a divorced 39-year-old, was caught on camera travelling at 51mph in a 40mph zone in her home city of Plymouth. She already had nine points on her licence and another conviction would have led to a ban. So instead of owning up, she tried to wriggle out of the conviction by claiming the car was being driven by her ex sister-in-law Joanne Aikens. |
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| In reality, Mrs Aikens has lived in San Francisco since 1993 and was oblivious to the plot. Rees, a community psychiatric nurse with a teenage son, gave her own home address on official forms so she could keep an eye on the flow of paperwork surrounding the case. But she claimed to be Mrs Aikens, giving Mrs Aikens's driving licence number on the forms and twice forging her signature. |
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'A very serious criminal matter' |
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| However, when the authorities searched through their records, they spotted the UK address of Mrs Aikens's mother on licence details recorded before Mrs Aikens emigrated. When they sent a letter to the family home in March this year, Rees's plan rapidly collapsed. |
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| Mrs Aikens's mother was able to vouch that her daughter lived abroad and other family members identified Rees as the true driver of the car from photos taken by the speed camera. Yesterday, Rees stood in the dock at Plymouth Crown Court to be given her six-month jail sentence. |
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| PC Duncan Russell said outside court: "This sentence sends out a very clear message to anyone considering falsifying their details over a Notice of Intended Prosecution. If there is sufficient evidence to prosecute, an offence of perverting the course of justice, action will be taken in all circumstances. |
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| Rees had the mistaken belief that we would not carry out further inquiries into this offence of speeding. What started out as a fairly minor traffic offence led to a very serious criminal matter where the starting point in court is custody." |
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| Mrs Aikens would have faced being arrested had she tried to enter the country because a warrant had been issued for non-payment of fines. It was not until the DVLA had contacted her in America that she became aware that her name had been used in an attempt to evade a fine. |
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| A spokesman for the Devon and Cornwall Safety Camera Partnership said: "It is not worth the risk of being sent to jail not to pay the £60 fine and three penalty points." Earlier this week lorry driver Cliff Glendinning, who was accused of waving out of his cab window to warn other motorists about a speed trap, was finally cleared after a two-year legal battle costing taxpayers £10,000. |
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| Comment. No it isn't worth risking jail-time just to save £60 and three points... but for many people losing their licence may be a lot more than a minor inconvenience... they might also lose their jobs... can't pay their bills... have their home repossessed... and it becomes understandable that someone who is otherwise a very law-abiding citizen finds themselves contemplating such a course of action. |
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| This must be particularly galling for people in these circumstances when they consider... that if they had been a conscious law-breaker and not registered their vehicles at their home address... paid no tax or insurance... the fine would never have been sent to their home... and would have ended up in the bin with the thousands of other speeding tickets which never catch up with their rightful owners. |
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