Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > I don't believe it .....

[Henners]

Police spent more than £10,000 of public money, and used a helicopter and a spotter plane, to convict a woman of driving while eating an apple. Officers spent months gathering evidence and building a vast case against 23-year-old Sarah McCaffery – and yesterday she was fined £60.

The nursery nurse was forced to attend court 10 times before the fine was finally handed out by magistrates at South Shields, Tyneside. Victims of crime groups and campaigners for taxpayers were furious at what they see as a scandalous waste of public money. Officers swung into action after McCaffery was spotted eating a golden delicious at the wheel of her Ford Ka.

She refused to accept a £30 on-the-spot fine, claiming she was in full control of the car, and said she would fight it in court. Astonishingly, police then called in a spotter plane to film her route, then repeated the exercise with a police helicopter. Officers then videoed the route from a squad car and used the footage as part of yesterday’s two and a half hour hearing.

The costs of the whole proceedings against McCaffery are estimated at £10,000. She said: "It is a joke they put so much effort into this. I couldn’t believe it when they brought all this video evidence into court. "You’d think they’d have better things to do. Aren’t there enough proper criminals for them to catch?" Her solicitor, Geoffrey Forrester, said: “This is all about trying to crush her because she is the one who stood up and said 'this is silly'."

A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: "As the defendant chose a court trial rather than accept a fixed penalty, we were obliged to gather all appropriate evidence to present our case."

Matthew Elliot of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "The thousands of pounds spent on this case could have been spent trying to tackle real criminals, the people who burgle our houses and steal our cars."

[Edited on 25-1-2005 by Henners]

[keefer]

if only we could say it is surprising.
****s

[antonye]

In all fairness, it was her that requested a trial at court and the police then had to gather enough evidence against her to prosecute - using a helicopter and a plane as well as a car to video the route may be a bit overkill, but if that's what it takes to secure the conviction then that is what will happen.

However, the application of the law fairly across all crimes is shown to be a mockery with cases like this. Any Judge or Magistrate worth their while should call the Chief Inspector to the bench and get him to explain why they felt it worthwhile to use the resources they did.

It's a shame the same effort isn't put into securing convictions and then punishing the little scrotes who steal cars and burgle houses.

[Chaz]

this must mean everyone smoking while driving can get nicked.

[JPM]

What about changing gear?

[keefer]

I'm I aloud to wind the window down ?

[Iconic944ss]

While I can see both sides of the fence for this case - the excess it has been taken too only deminishes respect for the police in the public's eyes.

I also believe in the north east a woman was proscuted for drinking out of sports bottle after a gym class.

Where has 'common sense' gone ???

[ali]

What a bunch of fcuking idiots. No excuses, the d1ckhead that stopped her in the first place should be fired, the responsible (sic) person that allowed the money to be spent should be fired, and the magistrate should have ripped the pair of them apart in court.

Makes no odds. So few people are willing to stand up against absurd, petty, and irrelevant laws that this is only set to get worse.

Cretins.

[Jools]

Yep, I guess theoretically you can be nicked for doing anything that means you don't have both your hands and both your feet free to control the car. This means swigging water from a bottle, lighting a ciggy, fumbling for a CD in the glovebox, obviously eating anything.

As Antonye says, the stupidity is not that the police spent so much money raising sufficient evidence - I can see that once somebody stands up and says 'this is stupid - I'm going to court' they have to go through all this rigmarole. The real stupidity is in the judgement of the plod that nicked her. Surely, unless eating the apple was causing her driving to go to pieces all but the most overzealous idiot would've just let her off with a caution. Rewind a week or so to a plonker in an Elise who got let off with a caution for coming round a bend sideways on the Cat and Fiddle almost into the path of an oncoming patrol car. Hmmmm would the apple munching cause driving as ludicrous as that? I doubt it.

I would imagine she probably got a bit lippy at being pulled for such a trivial thing and the PC decided to exercise his powers just because he could. Plonker.

I feel sorry for all the police in traffic who, let's face it do a damned difficult job at times. Last week, my wife's uncle was witness to a head on collision near Milton Keynes. A car overtook a long line of traffic, inexplicably failing to notice an oncoming minibus which it hit head on. The car driver was killed instantly, all the passengers in the minibus were trapped. My wife's uncle was trying to free some trapped passengers when the minibus went up in flames, killing everyone inside. The traffic cops were amongst the first on this grizzly scene, having to deal with the aftermath.

Imagine doing a depressing job like that, then coming home to see on the news that one of your 'colleagues' had tarred you all with the pillock brush again.

[antonye]

Agree completely Jools - it probably wasn't even a traffic copper but an overzealous policeman in a normal patrol car.

What's happened to "having a word" these days?