Speeding widower used dead wife’s details

Christopher Bingley, 44, was caught speeding four times but because he was driving his dead wife’s car the tickets were issued in her name.

He paid the fines but the points were added to her licence.

Bradford Crown Court heard Bingley, of Fartown, Huddersfield has previous convictions for driving whilst disqualified, one of which resulted in a short jail term in 2000, and drink driving.

Joanne Bingley killed herself in April 2010 – about four months before the first speeding offence.

She had been suffering from severe post-natal depression and committed suicide 10 weeks after the birth of their first child, Emily.

Bingley previously pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice.

Judge Peter Benson sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

The judge said: “On three separate occasions when you yourself had been speeding in a vehicle registered in your deceased wife’s name you filled in every form purporting to be for her admitting she was the driver and sadly it had been months before the offences when she had passed away.

“It is said by various people that you were so distraught by her death that you were acting in a state of confusion. I am sorry but I do not accept that.

“Each of these acts involved you forging details and that was a deliberate course to take. I do not accept that it was out of confusion.”

The judge said the only reason for suspending the jail term was so Bingley could look after his daughter.

Defence lawyer Claire Moran said after his wife’s death unemployed Bingley set up a charity, which he has resigned from, suffered severe health problems and is now bankrupt and facing eviction from his home.

She said his world had been “destroyed” since his wife’s death.

Bingley blamed his wife’s death on post-natal depression and set up a charity to highlight the illness in February last year.

The judge highlighted his previous convictions, saying the current offences were set against a background of “ignoring road traffic laws”.

“It seems to me these were deliberate attempts to avoid the consequences of speeding.”

The judge, however, commended his charity work. Bingley will be subject to a four-month home curfew and was banned from driving for nine months.