BOSSREG - Number One For Number Plates

Accountant Vowes To Fight Number Plate Fine!

A WEALTHY accountant has vowed to fight on after being landed with a 1,000 bill for the eye-catching personalised number plate on his Bentley.

Accountant Vowes To Fight Number Plate Fine!

A WEALTHY accountant has vowed to fight on after being landed with a £1,000 bill for the eye-catching personalised number plate on his Bentley.

Graham Wildin, a 59-year-old dad-of-three, has had the plate W1 LDN on his gleaming blue Bentley for the last nine years.

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.But he was prosecuted after a police community support officer spotted that the plate contravenes Section 59 (1) of the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994.

The problem is that there is no space between the W1 and the LDN - and the law requires a 33mm gap between them.

When Mr Wildin, of Meendhurst Road, Cinderford, found a £60 penalty notice on his car for breaching the number plate regulations he refused to accept it and took the case to court.

He denied the offence - but was convicted and fined £150 with £620 costs. Undeterred, he appealed against the conviction to Gloucester Crown Court last week and was unsuccessful again. He was ordered to pay another £220 costs, taking the bill for his legal challenges to almost £1,000.

But Mr Wildin, who runs a Lydney accountancy firm, is not letting the matter rest. He has vowed to battle on and appeal to the High Court, no matter what it costs.

‘Ridiculous’

“I think it is absolutely ridiculous that this PCSO, a public servant paid by us, should be deployed on such petty and ridiculous duties,” said Mr Widin.

“The fact that he goes out measuring the spaces between characters on number plates when there is serious crime going on all around him is quite frankly outrageous. I'm sure most people would rather see all police officers dealing with real crime, not something as pernickety as this.”

Gloucester Crown Court heard that Mr Wildin has owned the W1 LDN plate since November 1999 and it has been on his Bentley since 2002.

Denying the offence on the grounds that he had owned the plate since before the regulations became law, he also questioned whether the car was parked on a public road when it was booked.

His arguments were rejected by Recorder Malcolm Gibney, who said the law clearly stated that numbers and letters could not be in groups of more than four on registration plates.

And he said the court found that the vehicle was parked on a road within the meaning of the Act at the time of the offence.

"It was part of the highway to which the public has access," he said.

Mr Wildin has three weeks to take the case to the High Court.

 

2012-12