Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Aristocrat who lost stately home now can’t afford to insure his car
AN aristocrat who lost his stately home and family fortune says he now can’t afford to insure his car – after he was caught behind the wheel with no insurance.
David Brudenell-Bruce, 68, is the Earl of Cardigan and descended from Henry VIII’s wife Jane Seymour.
But a lengthy legal battle saw him lose his £12 million family fortune and 100-bed stately pile – the 4,500 acre Savernake Estate in Wiltshire.
Lord Cardigan – estranged father of Bo Bruce, who starred in The Voice in 2012 – was at one point forced to live in a rundown farmhouse on the estate.
He had become embroiled in a row with trustees and ended up being forced to wash in his local swimming pool and claim benefits.
Now the old Etonian has withdrawn his appeal against a recent driving ban after a judge warned his disqualification could go up or down.
He was due to appeal a threemonth driving ban, imposed after he was convicted of doing 15mph above the speed limit in an uninsured Lexus in Marlborough on November 17, 2019.
Speaking outside Swindon Crown Court, he said he had not been able to afford to insure the car.
He added that he felt “disbelief that the court can offer me its verdict before the case even starts”.
Asked what he would have said to the judge in mitigation, he said: “I would have explained the nightmare scenario of bringing up a seven-year-old autistic child and a mother who doesn’t drive and they are both entirely dependent upon me.
“It’s a nightmare. There’s no public transport in the Forest.”
The earl was caught by police just a month after he was given six penalty points for driving an uninsured car back in 2018.
Ben Irwin, for Brudenell-Bruce, told the court that his client was withdrawing the appeal.
It followed a warning from Judge Jason Taylor QC that the court would be looking at the sentence afresh and the disqualification could go up or down.
Judge Taylor said: “It might well be we take a dim view that somebody who having been convicted of having no insurance a year later is driving again with no insurance.”
In March, Swindon magistrates imposed eight points on the earl’s licence – then banned him as a ‘totter’ because he had accumulated more than 12 penalty points.
But they reduced the disqualification from the typical six months to three months after the earl’s lawyers said his family – in particular his young daughter – would face exceptional hardship if he was banned from the roads.
Following an application from prosecutor Jonathan Ransen on Thursday, the bench ordered that Brudenell-Bruce, who still lives on the family estate in Savernake Forest, pay £330 in costs.
The earl’s lawyer had also previously said his client was of limited means and his legal fees were being paid for by another, who was not named in court.
The Savernake Estate, which includes a stately home and Britain’s only privately-owned forest, had been in the earl’s family for almost 1,000 years.