Driver fingered by police

The Sun
Feb. 01, 2006

A MOTORIST was hit with an £80 fine — for giving a speed camera the finger.

Simon Thompson, 41, made the middle finger curse when he spotted the mobile camera as he drove home from work WITHIN the speed limit.

He was stunned half an hour later when the two cops who had been operating the device knocked on his door — and handed him a fixed penalty notice for making offensive gestures under the Public Order Act.

Last night furious clerk Simon accused police in Colchester, Essex, of a vendetta against motorists.

He said his case was absurdly trivial compared to an attack at the town’s St Benedict’s college a few days earlier.

The school’s headmaster slammed cops for failing to react quickly enough when a staff member was battered by hoodie thugs who gatecrashed an exam.

Simon, who was travelling at less than 30mph on a single carriageway, said: “I accept what I did was foolish and it wasn’t my finest hour. But this shows the police have got their priorities completely wrong.

“I wasn’t giving the officers the finger, I was aiming my anger at the camera. I’ve got as much contempt for speed cameras as everyone else. I’m a careful driver. My licence has been clean for ten years.”

Referring to the school incident, Simon added: “A teacher gets attacked by thugs and by the time the police get there they’ve all scarpered. Yet they pursue me to my own front door for making a gesture at an inanimate object.”

Essex Police said: “The man received the fine because he was seen to gesture several times to officers operating a mobile speed camera in an obscene and offensive way.”

# TRAFFIC wardens slapped a £30 ticket on a digger just yards from the roadworks hole it was scraping out for the local council.

Workmen in Bolton, Greater Manchester, parked the vehicle overnight across the road so it would be LESS of an obstruction. But the wardens issued the ticket because it was on a taxi rank.