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An auto enthusiast who boasted of setting a speed record by traveling from John o’Groats to Land’s End in less than 10 hours was cleared of dangerous driving.
Thomas Davies, 29, was indicted after telling newspapers and radio stations that he made the trip, which the AA says is 837 miles, in nine hours and 36 minutes in his silver Audi A5.
A Truro crown court jury was told that if he had adhered to the speed limits, the trip, which supposedly took place in 2017, should have taken around 15 hours.
The court heard that after he appeared in national newspapers and on Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 program, the police raided his home in Corwen, North Wales.
Officers were said to have found scanning devices, used to detect traffic radars and fake license plates. He was charged with dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice.
Defending himself, Davies said that he made the trip but was not the driver and that the trip took 12 hours. He said he was a passenger in a similar-looking Audi driven by Irish friends he met within the car enthusiast community.
Davies called his account, which also appeared on a blog, “a real-life exaggeration.”
He said the case against him was “purely circumstantial at best,” and that if he had complied with the presumed speed, the car would have been captured by at least one of more than 50 speed cameras on the route.
Davies added: “It’s an exaggeration of a trip that happened between John o’Groats and Land’s End. This trip happened, but not how this blog describes it or how this prosecution has handled this case.
“The prosecution is committed to this notion that this blog is correct, the police are committed to the notion that this blog was a detailed description of what happened, it was accurate, and they built their case around the blog.”
He told the jury: “I understand I’ve done some stupid things, that’s obvious. I am not the same man I was three years ago and if I could go back and do things differently, I would, not in a way to cover my tracks. [but] because it’s just stupid. “
He was found not guilty of two counts of dangerous driving and not guilty of two acts designed to pervert the course of justice. He hugged a friend as he left court.
