God speed!
Archbishop is fined after being caught on camera doing 25mph in a 20mph limit (but at least he wasn’t driving like a demon)
HE had been driving at only 5mph over the speed limit – but the devil was in the detail for the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And an unholy row erupted yesterday as it emerged that the Most Rev Justin Welby was convicted of speeding on the very day he took aim at the Government’s flagship immigration policy.
The Archbishop, 67, was handed three penalty points and forced to pay £510 in fines and legal bills on Wednesday – just days after presiding over King Charles’s Coronation.
But yesterday a spokesman for the Church of England’s most senior bishop claimed that he had tried to pay the fine three times and was thwarted by ‘admin errors’. ‘He has all the paperwork to prove that he has tried to pay,’ they added.
Welby was captured on camera driving his modest Volkswagen Golf at 25mph on a 20mph road along the Albert Embankment in central London towards his official residence at Lambeth Palace, according to the Evening Standard.
He admitted the offence – which took place shortly after 11am on October 2 last year, online – meaning Lavender Hill magistrates could deal with the matter using written evidence in a private hearing.
The court fined Welby £300 and ordered him to pay an additional £120 victim surcharge and £90 in costs. It is understood that Transport for London introduced the 20mph limit on the road three years ago.
The archbishop was convicted on the day he used a rare speech in the House of Lords to attack the Illegal Immigration Bill, which would make it easier to deport migrants arriving on UK shores. He told the upper chamber that the bill was ‘morally unacceptable’ and claimed that it would ‘damage the UK’s interests and reputation at home and abroad’.
But Mr Welby’s intervention prompted a fierce backlash from Government supporters, with immigration minister Robert Jenrick telling BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme: ‘There’s nothing moral about allowing the pernicious trade of people smugglers to continue.’
Mr Welby crowned King Charles III – and his Queen Consort Camilla – at Westminster Abbey in a historic ceremony on Saturday last week watched by 20million Britons and millions more worldwide.
A Lambeth Palace spokesman yesterday said that the archbishop had been aware of the speeding offence but had not been notified that the case had gone to court.
They insisted: ‘He has tried to resolve this and pay the fine three times.
‘He has all the paperwork to prove that he has tried to pay. Admin errors seem to be causing problems.’
‘He tried to pay fine three times’