Driver paid ‘Mr Fix It’ £300 to get false name to give to police
A DRIVER worried about losing his licence after being caught on camera using his mobile phone paid a shadowy “Mr Fix It” to make the problem “go away”, a court has heard.
In return for handing over £300, Anthony Blackford was provided with the genuine details of an innocent person whom he could name as the driver.
But thanks to some dogged detective work, the scam failed and the self-employed plumber not only found himself banned but in the dock of a crown court charged with perverting the course of justice. The identity of the “Mr Fix It” remains unknown.
Brian Simpson, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on the afternoon of March 29 last year the defendant was photographed using a phone as he drove a van on the busy A48 near the M4 Pont Abraham roundabout.
The registered keeper of the van – leasing company GRS Motors Group – was asked to provide details of the driver, and the firm gave Blackford’s details.
A notice was duly to sent to the defendant but was returned with the name, address and date of birth of a person living in Doncaster.
The court heard that though the details given to police were of a genuine person, he could not be found at the Yorkshire address provided so police went back to Blackford.
A second request to name the driver went unanswered, and when the defendant was finally spoken to he told police he had not received the requests for information as he had moved, and he denied knowing anything about returning the form with the Doncaster address.
However, the police fingerprinted the letter which had been returned to them and matched the prints to 33-year-old Blackford, and they also compared the image caught on camera at Pont Abraham with the defendant’s driving licence picture held by the DVLA.
Anthony Blackford, of Llanddarog, Carmarthenshire, had previously pleaded to perverting the course of justice when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
David Leathley, for Blackford, said it was the fear of getting points on his licence and of being disqualified which had led the selfemployed plumber to turn to the services of a “Mr Fix It” who could provide the personal details of another driver to give to the police.
He said his client had paid the fixer, who the barrister said he was not going to name, £300 to “in effect make the problem go away”, and he described Blackford as “astonishingly naive”.
Judge Geraint Walters said perverting the course the justice was always regarded as a serious offence as it struck at the heart of the criminal justice system, but he said he was going to take the “quite exceptional” step of not imposing immediate custody.
Blackford was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, banned from driving for eight months, and must pay £720 towards the cost of his prosecution.
The judge praised the “old-fashioned police investigative skill” of the officer who pursued Blackford.