Safe Speed Forums

10:30 - 08 June 2005
A former England cricketer has been banned from driving after police caught him doing 125mph on the M1.

Middlesex all-rounder Owais Shah was handed a 56-day ban, fined £800 and ordered to pay £200 costs at Loughborough Magistrates' Court on Monday.

An unmarked police car spotted the sportsman's Vauxhall Astra flying along the M1 near junction 24 in December last year.

The England A player, who played a number of one-day internationals for the first string national side, had been partying with team-mates in Nottingham after a training session at Loughborough University, the hearing was told.

The court heard the 26-year-old, from Hendon Way, north west London, wanted to get home to see his wife after the party.

However, he was stopped by traffic police at around 11.35pm when they spotted his two-litre Vauxhall Astra and a team-mate's BMW convertible breaking the speed limit over a two-mile stretch of the M1 past junction 24.

The cars had been travelling in tandem on the southbound carriageway, Pc Michael Hinton told the court.

The Pakistan-born cricketer admitted speeding, but denied he was going as quickly as the police had said. He said he was doing 100mph.

However, magistrates accepted evidence from the traffic officer that he and a colleague had tracked the cars at 125mph.

In mitigation, Mark Jackson, defending, said: "He (Shah) accepts it was a rash moment. He had been spending a considerable amount of time away from his wife, who he had married in September.

"It was more out of keenness to return home and he accepts that he should not have been travelling at speeds approaching 100mph."