A speed camera installer who was rushing home to the West Midlands from Scotland to be with his pregnant wife has been fined – for speeding.
Marjinder Singh Sagoo told magistrates he was very embarrassed to be in court because he worked in road safety. Flintshire Magistrates’ Court at Mold was told yesterday that Sagoo was a Gatso Speed Camera installation engineer working throughout North West England and North Wales.
He was fined #200 with #35 costs and four penalty points imposed on his previously clean driving licence after he admitted driving at 76mph in a 50mph area at Pontblyddin near Mold one afternoon in August.
Sagoo (29), of Jubilee Avenue, West Bromwich, said his wife was at an advanced stage of pregnancy and he had received a telephone call that she was not well and experiencing stomach pains. So he finished his work as quickly as he could and drove back to the West Midlands to be with her.
The defendant said that it turned out to be "practice contractions" and their daughter was born a few days later.
In a letter to the court, he said that did not excuse his actions but his concentration was on getting home to his wife and he must have missed the speed limit road sign. Asked outside court if he had been caught by one of his own cameras, Sagoo said: "You are joking aren’t you."
He said he had been caught not by a fixed Gatso camera but by a mobile camera in a van.
