Police driving instructor caught doing 101mph in a 30mph zone is CLEARED He was ‘assessing own skills’ on way to his son’s college
A POLICE driving instructor who jumped red lights and drove at 101mph in a 30mph zone on the way to his son’s college was cleared of any driving offences yesterday.
PC Paul Brown reached speeds of 122mph on a dual carriageway in an unmarked BMW X5 patrol car.
Dashcam footage also showed the 48year- old approaching roundabouts on the wrong side of the road with his blue lights on. But he was cleared of 16 motoring offences after he said he was carrying out a self-assessment of his driving skills, known as continuing professional development (CPD).
He argued that this exempted him from traffic laws – despite a senior colleague and experts saying it was not standard practice. PC Brown, a Norfolk Police driving instructor since 2016, was given permission to use the car on the morning of April 30 last year to attend a meeting at City College Norwich.
Cars and lorries pulled over to let him pass but in court he dismissed claims he was rushing to the appointment as ‘utter nonsense’. He was accused of 11 counts
‘Training yourself is not realistic’
of speeding, four of jumping red lights and one of driving on the wrong side of a Keep Left marker after a colleague, PC James Waller, checked the patrol car following the 17-mile round trip.
On-board telemetry showed PC Brown had driven at 122mph on the A11 dual carriageway and 101mph in a temporary 30mph zone on the same road.
At other points he reached 85mph on a 30mph road in a built-up area in Eaton, Norwich, and 86mph in a 40mph zone.
PC Waller, a senior driving instructor at the force’s headquarters in Wymondham, told Suffolk Magistrates Court in Ipswich he had not known the patrol car would be used for CPD during the journey.
There was an ‘unwritten rule’ that driving school vehicles could be used for such trips, he said. PC Brown had said it was regarding his son.
‘It was a personal matter. I didn’t ask any more about it,’ said PC Waller, who is now with Police Scotland. ‘I was surprised to see that blue lights had been used.’
Private journeys were not normally used for CPD and there was no legal exemption from road traffic laws as PC Brown was acting outside force guidelines and policy, he said.
Mark Milton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for driver training at the time, told magistrates there was no national policy on how instructors conduct CPD. PC Brown’s driving had been ‘ pretty typical’ for an officer rushing to an emergency call or training for emergency circumstances.
But he would expect another officer to be in the car to judge their performance. There should also be a written record. ‘Someone training themselves is just not realistic. You simply cannot perform two functions at the same time,’ he said.
Giving evidence, PC Brown said: ‘I wanted to keep my driving skills up to scratch. If my standards fall short my credibility goes out of the window.
‘It was a personal appointment. It was a 15 or 20-minute drive and it would give me what I needed – a bit of a refresh to double check my skills.’ He could have disengaged the car’s recording equipment but left it on to analyse his performance.
Des Pooley, head of the joint Norfolk and Suffolk police driving instruction unit, said there were ‘ odd occasions’ when instructors trained themselves. Clearing the officer, presiding magistrate Anne Walker said: ‘We cannot be sure that Mr Brown did not undertake these two journeys while carrying out his own CPD.’ She called on Norfolk and Suffolk Police to draw up clear procedures for driving instructor training.
PC Brown has been suspended from driving duties since the incident. He hopes to be reinstated as a driving instructor.
Norfolk Police Federation chairman Andy Symonds said afterwards: ‘I am really pleased on behalf of the officer and he is chuffed as well. He believed he was innocent of all the charges. I am glad the magistrates have come to the same conclusion.’