Mum caught on phone at wheel said Ramadan fast put her in a panic
A MUSLIM mother caught using her mobile phone at the wheel tried to escape punishment by claiming fasting for Ramadan had put her in a ‘state of panic’.
Lina Khatib was driving with her two-year- old son and 11-month-old daughter as passengers when police in an unmarked car spotted her pressing buttons and pulled her over.
But the 32-year-old begged a court to spare her the six penalty points that are now a mandatory punishment for drivers caught using their mobiles following a Daily Mail campaign to curb the menace of motorists using their phones while driving.
She said she had been trying to use the GPS on her phone, claiming fasting during the day for Ramadan was a ‘special reason’ for her actions.
However, magistrates rejected her plea for special treatment, saying she had put others in danger.
PC Sailesh Patel, a traffic officer, told Manchester Magistrates’ Court said: ‘I saw her drive across the front of my vehicle and I saw a young child stood up in the rear of the vehicle. The child was not wearing a seatbelt.’ I looked through the driver’s window to see the driver pick a mobile phone up and start pressing it with her right hand with her thumb on the screen.’
Khatib, from Wythenshawe, Manchester, said she would normally stay at home when fasting. However, Ramadan was almost at an end and she had decided to go out to buy clothes in nearby Altrincham ahead of the festival of Eid.
Using an interpreter, she told the court: ‘I was in the area because it was Ramadan and we fast up to 18 hours. I was going to Altrincham and I’m not familiar with it.
‘My son had undone his seatbelt. At some point he stood up and moved the seatbelt. I was telling him to stop and get to the back. I was very scared, I was very panicked, I feared for my son.’
At this point Khatib said she decided to pick up her mobile to ‘ hear the sat nav voice clearly’ and had intended to pull over to calm her son down. Khatib told magistrates the situation amounted to a ‘special reason’ for her conduct on June 22 – and that she only used the phone when stationary at the traffic lights while her son was screaming.
Magistrate Kasra Akbar rejected Khatib’s excuse, saying: ‘You put yourself, your child and other people in danger. You know the law.’
She was given the six penalty points and fined £90, plus £115 in costs and surcharges. The punishment was brought in after motoring organisations said the issue of drivers using mobile phones had become an ‘epidemic’.
Last year 22 people in Britain are believed to have been killed and 99 seriously injured in road accidents where drivers were using their mobiles.