England international footballer Jesse Lingard has been disqualified from driving under the totting up rule, after being convicted of failing to identify the driver of a vehicle registered to him.
Lingard, 30, admitted the offence when he appeared for trial at Manchester Magistrates' Court earlier today, Friday, 28th July 2023.
Reading between the lines it would appear there is a bit more to this case than meets the eye - not least the suggestion that a name previously provided as the driver of Lingard's vehicle was entirely fictitious. The midfielder, who most recently played for Nottingham Forest, also denied the offence at earlier hearings.
The court heard that a Range Rover registered to Lingard was clocked speeding on the A56 in Greater Manchester in August 2022.
The police made efforts to ascertain who was driving the vehicle at the time of the offence, by sending a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) and Section 172 Notice to Lingard as registered keeper of the vehicle.
Lingard claims these documents never arrived with him, due to a change of address at around the same time. However, he has now had an apparent change of heart in relation to his plea.
Frank Rogers, mitigating, said: "Mr Lingard has accepted that the system in place at that time just was not good enough to protect him and deal with processing his mail.
"So when the speeding offence was committed in August last year in Stretford, Mr Lingard was in Nottingham. He was not the driver."
Mr Rodgers also put it to the court that as his client only had 6 penalty points on his licence he had no reason to try and dodge the speeding offence, which would not have resulted in his disqualification.
Tara Riley, prosecution, has indicated to the court that the basis of Lingard's plea is not entirely satisfactory to the Crown, but given the nature of the offence it wouldn't make a material difference in sentencing.
Ms Riley's comments are, I would suggest, quite interesting.
District Judge Jane Hamilton fined the footballer £900 and ordered him to pay £360 surcharge and £200 towards prosecution costs.
His licence was also endorsed with 6 penalty points, which means he is now disqualified from driving for a minimum period of 6 months under the totting up rule.
Mr Rogers indicated that Lingard, who earned £115,000 a week at Forest, had no intention of making an exceptional hardship application.
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