Phone ban is whine dining
SOS host Knowles asks if he can drive home after 6-month car ban
DIY SOS host Nick Knowles asked a magistrate if he could drive home – after being banned from the wheel for speeding while using a mobile.
The former I’m A Celebrity contestant had previously admitted both offences.
But after being given the six-month ban he asked: “I can drive home, right?”
He then said “I’m joking” when the answer was no.
Knowles was clocked by a police camera doing 85mph on the 70mph-limit Brockworth bypass, near Gloucester, in January.
Prosecutor Nadina Farley-Turner told Cheltenham magistrates court yesterday the camera operator “could clearly see he was using his phone”.
Knowles, 56, said he was holding it as his hands-free kit was faulty. But he admitted: “I had fallen into the habit of looking at texts. I now put my phone in the boot.” The presenter said he refused advice to try to “get by on a technicality”. “I was travelling faster than I should have done,” he said. “My phone had a dodgy lead and I was holding it.” Knowles later added that using a phone at the wheel was “highly dangerous”, and it would have been “pompous and irresponsible to try and get off ”.
After adding six points to his licence, which raised his tally to 12, and fining him £666 for each offence, magistrate Andrew Hill said Knowles, of Cirencester, Glos, had “shown remorse”. The Daily Mirror has long campaigned for drivers to stay off their phones. But experts say police cuts mean many feel they can get away with it. NICK KNOWLES AFTER RULING BY MAGISTRATES A RAGING restaurateur is giving diners 10% off if they lock up their mobiles.
Scott Learmonth was shocked his once-loud dining room was often silent, with his youthful clientele staring at screens.
Now diners who put their mobiles in a sealed box will get money off at 7 Sins, in Montrose, Angus.
Scott said: “I just find it really bizarre. People are just not speaking, they are not interacting.
“I just want to bring some conversation back.”
I can drive home, right? No...? I’m joking...