A car enthusiast who boasted that he had set a speed record by travelling from John o’Groats to Land’s End in less than 10 hours has been cleared of dangerous driving.
Thomas Davies, 29, was prosecuted after telling newspapers and radio stations he made the trip, which according to the AA is 837 miles, in nine hours and 36 minutes in his silver Audi A5.
A jury at Truro crown court was told that if he had stuck to speed limits the journey, 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 show, police raided his home in Corwen, north Wales.
It was claimed officers found scanning devices, used to detect speed cameras, and fake number plates. He was charged with dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice.
Defending himself, Davies said he did make the trip but he was not the driver and said the journey took 12 hours. He said he was a passenger in a similar-looking Audi being driven by Irish friends he met within the car enthusiast community.
Davies called his account, which also appeared in a blog, “an exaggeration of real life”.
He said the case against him was “purely circumstantial at best”, and that if he had done the speed alleged 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 did happen but not how this blog describes it and not how this prosecution has brought this case.
“The prosecution are wedded to this notion this blog is right, the police are wedded to the notion 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 have done some stupid things, that is 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 of covering my tracks [but] because it’s just stupid.”
He was found not guilty of two charges of dangerous driving and not guilty of two of doing acts intended to pervert the course of justice. He hugged a friend as he left court.
