A COURT has overturned a motorist's speeding fine - throwing doubt over the 100,000 fines dealt out by speed cameras in South Yorkshire every year.
Self-employed gas fitter Clive Hague, 51, risked thousands of pounds in a legal challenge which proved that an enforcement officer breached rules designed to ensure that speedguns are accurate.
Mr Hague contested the fine after being fined for al
legedly doing 38mph in a 30mph zone on a Sheffield road on May 15, 2007.
But a trial at Sheffield Magistrates' Court found that he had no case to answer.
The verdict has cast doubt over the 27 other fines given out by South Yorkshire Safety Camera Partnership on Langsett Road South in Oughtibridge that day.
Mr Hague's legal team proved that newly qualified enforcement officer Shaun Greenwood failed to test distance readings on his laser gun before and after his two-hour shift in Oughtibridge where he snared 27 people for "speeding".
The Crown Prosecution Service was also unable to prove distance markers at the Attercliffe depot which Mr Greenwood used to test his device earlier that day were officially 10m apart.
In court, Mr Greenwood, who had only been working for SYSCP for three months insisted that he had been following his training.
Ordering £5,000 in costs to be paid out of public funds, the district judge said that it was vital that speedguns were carefully checked before and after enforcement officers began work.
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