A speeding driver and repeat offender who travelled at about 135mph on the M6 in south Cumbria has lost his appeal against the ban he received.
A police officer in a stationary marked patrol vehicle spotted 30-year-old Christopher Emery’s black Ford Focus whizzing past junction 37 on the southbound carriageway just before 5pm on June 20 last year.
Believing Emery was breaking the speed limit, the PC used a laser device and recorded him travelling at 120mph.
“The officer immediately left his location to catch up with the vehicle,” prosecutor Niamh Ingham told Carlisle Crown Court, “reaching speeds in excess of 135mph in order to do so.”
After the PC activated blue lights, Emery was pulled over and identified himself. He was brought before magistrates, fined after he admitted a speeding charge and also banned from the road for six months.
This was under the “totting up” process with Emery given penalty points twice before for speeding – in both 2018 and 2019.
Emery, who had failed in his bid to convince magistrates he should be spared a ban on the grounds of “exceptional hardship”, had a second bite at that cherry during an appeal against the driving disqualification was heard at Carlisle Crown Court this morning.
When his lawyer, Jeff Smith, suggested his M6 speeding had been “appalling”, Emery conceded “it was”, adding: “It was very poor.”
Emery described carrying out agency work which involved him travelling almost 30 miles from his North East home to a Darlington construction site in time for a 7.30am start. It was “impossible” to carry out that journey on public transport without setting off the night before.
But after hearing submissions, Recorder Killeen – sitting with two magistrates – concluded Emery, of Well Bank Road, Washington, would not be caused exceptional hardship by the driving ban.
“We accept there will be a hardship but the reality is this has been brought about by the appellant’s own conduct,” said Recorder Killeen. “I am sorry, but the appeal fails.”
