TIM SMIT BANNED FROM DRIVING
THE co-founder of Cornwall’s Eden Project has been banned from driving as an appeal judge accused him of “potentially a deliberate attempt” to mislead a court.
The Western Morning News last month reported how Sir Tim Smit, 66, had a driving ban quashed despite being caught speeding six times in three-and-a-half years.
Smit was given a six-month ban from driving under the totting-up of all his offences, but successfully appealed the ban at Truro Crown Court on the grounds of “exceptional hardship”.
Smit, of Bodmin Hill in Lostwithiel, is well known throughout Cornwall for his work at Eden and the Lost Gardens of Heligan.
He is currently locked in a battle over plans for Gillyflower Farm, a project would include an educational facility, orchards, a distillery, microbrewery, a restaurant and 20 accommodation units.
A court earlier heard he was clocked driving his Audi A5 at 88 miles-per-hour at Dunheved Bridge on the A30 on December 3, 2019.
His driver’s record showed he already had nine points on his licence relating to speeding matters in June 2017, June 2018 and September 2019, meaning he should have been given a disqualification under the so-called ‘totting’ rules.
However, at the initial appeal, Smit argued that banning him from driving would cause “exceptional hardship” to his ill father and step-mother, who rely on him for care for their complex needs and transport to medical appointments.
Giving evidence at that hearing on February 15, he said: “My father is blind and is 90 and step-mother six years younger but in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s that has created a number of problems.
“She, like I, is Dutch by birth and has forgotten English and gets angry when people speak English to her. I speak Dutch so my visits have gone up to daily, sometimes twice daily, and losing my licence would be catastrophic.”
Smit added that he is responsible for taking his parents to hospital appointments and that his stepmother will not go anywhere unless it is with him.
Smit finished off his evidence by saying that he is diabetic and is shielding, and that losing his licence would bring his life “to a standstill”.
The judge accepted what Smit had to say. “If times were different, this appeal would have been dismissed and he’d have to make alternate plans for their transportation, but in these times we find exceptional hardship would exist if a disqualification is imposed,” Judge Robert Linford told him.
Since the appeal last month, it has come to light that Smit used the exact same mitigation of “exceptional hardship” to avoid a driving ban at Bodmin Magistrates’ Court in July, 2018, for another ‘totting’ offence.
Using the same exceptional hardship mitigation in a second case is outlawed under the Road Traffic Offences Act. Once it had come to the court’s attention, Smit’s appeal was back before Judge Linford for a second time.
At the latest hearing, Smit told the court how his parents’ health has deteriorated even further and that he wished to apologise sincerely for not bringing the matter to the court’s attention last month.
He added that what he did was in no way an attempt to deliberately mislead the court. Judge Linford previously described Smit as having “a worrying lack of concern for speed limits”.
After hearing the re-listing of the appeal, Judge Linford accepted the account of Smit’s solicitor, Michael Gregson, that he did not know the mitigation had been used previously, but said that Smit certainly did know as he would have advanced it.
Judge Linford said: “It’s utterly inexplicable that an intelligent man was not aware of what was the grounds of his own appeal.
“We [Judge Linford and the magistrates who also heard the appeal] are clear and unanimous in the view that this argument has been argued before and then put back before the court. The argument cannot be advanced again, so the appeal is dismissed.
“We reject out of hand the appellant’s assertion he did not know he was not able to put the same exceptional hardship argument forward again and this is potentially a deliberate attempt to mislead us.”
Smit has now been banned from driving for six months, with Judge Linford saying he will be sending the case’s transcripts to higher powers.