Woman sentenced after changing appearance of her car to avoid speeding prosecutions

At 10.22am on 1 June 2012 Flood's L-registered Fiat Punto was snapped driving at 43mph on Manchester Road, Heywood

A woman who changed the appearance of her car in an attempt to evade speeding prosecutions has been sentenced.

Olivia Flood (23/06/1985), of Martindale Crescent, Middleton, admitted perverting the course of justice.

At Manchester Crown Court, Crown Square today, Thursday 20 June 2013, she was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months. She was also ordered to carry out 80 hours unpaid work and pay £500 costs.

At 10.22am on 1 June 2012 a Fiat Punto registration number LS08 HYN was recorded travelling at excess speed on Manchester Road, Heywood.

The speed limit on the road is 30 mph; the car was recorded travelling at 43 mph.

At 10.32am on the same date, on the same road, the same vehicle was recorded travelling at a speed of 41 mph in the opposite direction.

The car was identified as belonging to Olivia Flood.

On 11 June 2012, two Section 172 notices - which request information about the nominated driver of the vehicle at the time - were sent by post to her home address.

As there was no response provided, on 16 July 2012, two further ‘final request to prosecute’ notices were sent.

On 30 July 2012, Flood called the Central Ticket Office (CTO) requesting photographic evidence.

A further call was made by Flood to the CTO on 2 August 2012, during which she stated she was a teacher and that it could not have been her car that was caught speeding as she would have been in school at the time. She was advised to reply by letter and include photographs of her vehicle with any other evidence to support her claim.

On 20 August 2012, the two notices dated 16 July 2012 were returned to the CTO along with a letter and three images of her vehicle and a copy of a ‘signing in and out sheet’ from her workplace.

In the letter Flood stated that it could not have been her vehicle due to her being at work at the time of the offences. She wrote: “There are features of the car which are not present on the photographic evidence I received. My car has had a smaller, silver tax disc holder for around a year. I have a GB sticker in the rear windscreen. My car also has no tow bar cover.”

The matter was then referred by the CTO to GMP’s Road Crime Unit for investigation.

A search on computer systems for vehicles of the same registration returned several images.

Images from 2, 6, 7 and 29 June 2012 showed the car to be the same in appearance as those from the speeding offence (towing eye cover in place, rectangular tax disc holder and no stickers on the front of the vehicle).

An image captured on 18 September 2012 shows a towing eye cover missing, a sticker to the nearside of the front registration plate and no tax disc holder, supporting the view of officers that the cars appearance had been deliberately changed.

Flood was arrested in December 2012. During interview she claimed that she has to sign in and out of school and that the appearance of her car was different and therefore it could not have been her who was driving.

After being shown the pictures recovered as part of the investigation she admitted lying in an attempt to avoid prosecution.

Police Constable Mark Casey, from the Road Crime Unit, said: “Flood has gone to some quite extraordinary lengths to try and avoid speeding fines.

“Instead of being a little out of pocket and having some points endorsed on her license, she now has a conviction for perverting the course of justice and could face losing her job.

“This case proves that the consequences of not facing up to motoring offences can be significantly magnified when you try and lie yourself out of trouble.

“Unfortunately this is not a rare occurrence and is becoming more of a problem for the Central Ticket Office and police.

“While it ties up resources, we will not hesitate to investigate and prosecute where we believe serious offences, such as perverting the course of justice, have been committed and I want to highlight this case to send out a stark warning to other motorists.”