Man spends £30,000 and all of sons' inheritance fighting £100 speeding fine
‘I’m sick and tired at the whole system which is steamrolling ordinary people,’ says retired engineer
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Your support makes all the difference.A pensioner claims he spent £30,000 of life savings, including his sons’ inheritance, fighting a £100 speeding fine.
Richard Keedwell, 71, says he was wrongly slapped with a fine for travelling at 35mph in a 30mph zone during a day out in Worcester in 2016.
The retired engineer, of Yate, Gloucestershire, is adamant he was not over the speed limit – and even recruited an expert who told a court the speed camera may have been faulty or set off by a car in another lane, the BBC reports.
However, despite insisting he has no case to answer, the case at Worcester Magistrates’ Court dragged on for almost three years, eating into Mr Keedwell’s savings as he lost two appeals.
Speaking to the BBC, he said he thought the case would be “fairly quick” but spent “the best part of £30,000” on barristers’ fees, court costs and travel to the court on four separate occasions.
He added that he regretted the amount of money he had spent fighting the case, but that he “very simply wanted justice”.
“I really could not believe that I had been speeding,” he told the BBC. “It made a simple day out turn very sour actually.
“I’m sick and tired at the whole system which is steamrolling ordinary people.”
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told the broadcaster: “As the case involved both a lengthy trial at the magistrates’ court and subsequent hearings at the crown court to progress an appeal against conviction, the overall length of the case took some time to conclude.”
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