A comedian and leading television executive has received six points on his licence and been fined over £2,000 after reacting angrily when CyclingMikey confronted him for typing on his phone “with both hands” while driving in traffic in London.
Jimmy Mulville, the co-founder of Hat Trick Productions, the company behind hit TV programmes such as Have I Got News For You, Father Ted, Derry Girls, and Room 101, was spotted using his phone behind the wheel by the road safety campaigner and YouTuber,
real name Mike van Erp, while driving over Battersea Bridge last July, the Evening Standard reports (link is external).
According to Van Erp, after being confronted over his phone use, Mulville “flipped the bird” and shouted at the cyclist “go f*** yourself”.
Mulville, who was previously banned from driving in 2020 and handed another three points last October for speeding, was prosecuted for driving while using his mobile phone after not paying a Fixed Penalty fine.
Represented by Freeman and Co, the law firm of Nick Freeman – commonly known as Mr Loophole due to his ability to secure acquittals for celebrity clients charged with motoring offences – Mulville initially challenged much of the evidence put forward
by the Metropolitan Police, including the accusation that he used his phone behind the wheel.
However, at City of London magistrates court earlier this week, the 68-year-old comedian – who was absent from the trial due to illness – conceded that he was using his phone to look at a text.
Mulville was found guilty of driving while using his mobile phone and ordered to pay a £1,000 fine, plus £625 in costs and a £400 court fee. He also received six points on his driving licence.
“This was entirely out of character for him”, his barrister Sam Thomas told the court. “At the time, there were family concerns and he did look at the phone to look at a text message.”
Describing the incident, road safety activist Van Erp said that he was cycling home when he noticed the driver of an Aston Martin Rapide not keeping up with slow moving traffic, before accelerating sharply, a move described by the cyclist as the “
WhatsApp gap”.
“I commented to myself it was symptomatic of a distracted driver and I wondered if he was on the phone”, he told the court. “I stopped next to the driver’s side window of the Aston Martin, I saw the driver was busy typing on the phone.”
Van Erp claimed he saw Mulville “typing with both hands”, before quickly shutting down the app when he realised he was being watched.
He added: “At this point he flipped me the bird and mouthed to me something rude. I believe it was ‘go f*** yourself’.”
Van Erp, known as CyclingMikey on social media, has reported thousands of law-breaking drivers over the years, with 800 successful prosecutions in the last five years and 383 reports last year.
He attracted attention for particularly high-profile cases, such as catching Guy Ritchie and Chris Eubank using their phones while driving, with the film director being banned from driving for six months as a result, while the retired boxer was given
three penalty points and told to pay £280 in fines, court costs, and fees.
One of his latest videos, reported on by road.cc earlier this week and also stemming from July 2022, showed a London taxi driver telling the camera cyclist that he will “end up needing the dentist” after he challenged the professional driver’s
mobile phone use behind the wheel.
However, the cab driver, who Mikey filmed in Hyde Park, avoided police prosecution due to staff dealing with an IT system change, with Van Erp adding that they had been left understaffed and that the report subsequently ran out of time.
In January, speaking to road.cc, Mikey said “people need to see justice being done” and that any abuse he receives is simply because some motorists “feel they have the right to drive how they want”.
“In the beginning of my camera work, almost 17 years ago, I took a lot of strain at the abuse thrown my way,” he said. “I’d answer each comment seriously. Nowadays, there has been such a torrent of abuse and lies about me that I just let most of
it wash off me.
“In the UK cyclists are considered by society to be ‘cockroaches of the road’, unworthy scum who freeload on the public highway and are terrible lawbreakers. For such a person to challenge a driver for lawbreaking is a massive affront to the social
order, and people don’t like this.
“Many of those throwing abuse also feel that they have the right to drive how they want, and that nobody can tell them what to do. They see the prosecutions, and they are afraid of the consequences, and they are angry that someone dares to do this to
them.”
https://road.cc/content/news/phone-using-tv-producer-flipped-bird-cyclingmikey-301513
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