Driver who 'saw' a way out is jailed

Most motorists who get a fine through the letterbox simply pay up and put it down as an expensive slip.

But driver Richard Atkinson decided to take drastic action when he thought he had been caught on camera - drastic action which has landed him in jail for eight weeks.

The 31-year-old wrongly believed he was 'flashed' by a red-light camera as he went through a crossing on the A610 on January 20.

He then rented a circular saw and returned to the Nuthall roundabout at 3.20am, climbing a stepladder to cut off the camera's 'head'.

He then took it home in the back of his Peugeot 405 and put it in his garden. But witnesses had taken down his registration number and Atkinson was traced by police.

The irony of the story was that when police examined the camera, there was no record that Mr Atkinson had committed a traffic offence.