IGISTRATES at Bewdley who preferred a lorry driver's evidence a
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speeding case to that of a computerised meter had their decin upheld in the High Court in London last month.
ord Justice Ormrod said the iris had net yet reached the ge when such apparatus had be accepted as accurate "no tter what".
lut he also warned local Iches not to allow possible npathy for a motorist to run ay with their judgment.
he Bewdley magistrates had ;missed a speeding case .ught by the police against ry driver Barry Leonard mps, of Gaymore Farm, near derminster, last July. Lord Justice Ormrod, sitting with Mr Justice Woolf, said the police had conducted speed checks on Habberley Road, Bewdley, where there was a 30mph limit.
Two wires were stretched across the carriageway a set distance apart to obtain a computer estimate of speed. The meter logged Mr Stamps' lorry at 40 mph.
But Mr Stamps argued in court it was impossible for his lorry to reach such a speed on that stretch of road, and the magistrates, relying on their local knowledge, gave him the benefit of the doubt and dismissed the case.
The police complained to the judges that the magistrates wrongly relied on local knowledge instead of the meter.
Dismissing the appeal, the judge said normally meter evidence was conclusive in the vast majority of cases.
"But we have not reached the stage when the reading of such a piece of apparatus as this is to be accepted as absolutely accurate and true, no matter what," he said.
The magistrates were entitled to rely on local knowledge. But he warned: "Justices must be very careful not to allow sympathy to run away with judgment.