A Conservative MP was given a 28-day driving ban after admitting to speeding and asking the court for a driving ban in order not to be hypocritical.
Paul Bristow, the Conservative representative for Peterborough was caught driving at 76 mph (122 km/h) on a 50 mph stretch of the A1 at Buckden, Cambridgeshire.
Mr. Bristow pleaded guilty to the 20 November offence at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court.
He said earlier this year: “Only by asking to be disqualified can I look constituents in the eye”.
In his column for the Peterborough Telegraph, Mr. Bristow admitted that to maintain credibility he would have to admit responsibility.
“I need to be able to campaign about speeding on residential streets without any suggestion of hypocrisy,” he said.
In a bold statement, Mr. Bristow said he could not call for those caught speeding “to have consequences, without accepting that my own misjudgments on the A1 should too”.
He was fined £667, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £68 as well as a further £110 in court costs.
After coming third in the city’s by-election in 2019, Mr. Bristow later went on to win the seat in the general election.
One of the constituency’s previous MPs, Labour MP Fiona Onasanya, was also convicted and consequently removed from her seat in April 2019 after lying about a speeding offence.
