Speeding driver facing jail after 'web of lies'
Court reporter
Exeter Crown Court. Picture: Archant - Credit: Archant
A driver is facing jail after being found guilty of inventing a web of lies to try to get off a speed camera ticket.
Cleaning supervisor Neil Pegg, aged 58, of Bells Corner, Burrington, near Umberleigh, denied attempting to pervert the course of justice but was found guilty by a jury at Exeter Crown Court.
He claimed the front numberplate had been stolen from his Toyota Celica when it was parked outside his home in North Devon, and then fitted to an identical vehicle.
He told police he was unable to drive at the time of the speeding offence because he was recovering from an operation but checks showed that his mobile phone had been at exactly the same location as the speed camera at the moment it was triggered.
Pegg tried to firm up his story by claiming that the car was unroadworthy and had a broken front suspension, but investigators found it had passed its MOT test just four days earlier.
He is a classic car enthusiast who already had six points on his licence and was worried he could be banned after being snapped doing 69mph in a 50mph limit on the A361 in Barnstaple on July 9, 2019.
He reported his number plate as stolen shortly after he received a notice asking him to identify who was driving the car when it was caught speeding at 10.04am.
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Judge David Evans adjourned sentence until next week to give him time to ‘put his affairs in order’ but told him an immediate jail sentence is almost inevitable.
He told him he had been convicted because of ‘a mountain of evidence’.
Felicity Payne, prosecuting, said Pegg told a series of lies in the months after his car was snapped by the speed camera.
Police were able to establish that his phone was at exactly the same location at the time and that no bus services from his village could have been anywhere near the area.
Pegg told the jury the car in the photograph could not be his because it had front end damage while his Toyota was unmarked. He said he was on heavy medication after an operation at Derriford Hospital and could not drive.
He said friends had taken him to a beach in North Devon at around the time of the speeding offence and this may explain why his phone was on the road.
