www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/john-ogroa...6

From Cornwall Live:

It is alleged Thomas Davies didn't declare his record drive for almost a year because he knew speeding offences had to be prosecuted within six months.

On August 30, 2018, police executed a search warrant at the defendant’s home address in North Wales.

At the property, they found many items, but, most tellingly, underneath a tarpaulin sheet, they found a silver Audi A5 S5, the vehicle Davies claimed to have broken the record in. A search found an extra 80-litre fuel tank in the boot, something Mr Murray said was to keep stops to a minimum when racing time. The car itself also had a message board on the rear shelf of the vehicle, emergency lighting, and a PA system.

The prosecution alleges that Davies was using fake registration plates he bought from an Irish company a month before his journey.

His argument seems to be he was not the driver, it was Irish friend(s) car and driver. I seem to recall the original newspaper reports showed the Audi had Irish number plates. Presumably the CPS's case was stupidly flawed by naming him as the driver and so Jury had no option but to clear him.

I think you've nailed it there. No evidence actually put him behind the wheel.

He waited 6 months before publishing the blog because speeding offences time out and cannot be prosecuted unless proceedings start within 6 months of the date of the offence (although if the car was using fake plates, any NIPs would not find the registered keeper of the car anyway).

However, dangerous driving has no such limitation, and the usual requirement for a NIP to be served within 14 days of the offence can be got around, there is legal precedent for this..

If you read the reports from 2018 when this was supposed to have taken place he quotes 'going through Liverpool'. More than enough evidence to suggest the whole tale was BS.

On the CPS website, definitions of dangerous driving include:-

• talking to and looking at a passenger
• lighting a cigarette, changing a CD or tape, tuning the radio.

Looking at these definitions I'm not surprised the CPS neglected to realise that they lacked the essential ingredient for a prosecution - Evidence.

Another government agency not fit for (any) purpose.

www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/driving-offences

Looking at this in a bit of detail, I don't believe this feat could have been achieved.

It is 250 miles from John O’Groats to Dunblane, where the driver will first join the motorway network. The only feasible route for this journey is via the A99 to Wick and then the A9. This route passes through a number of sizeable towns including Wick itself, Helmsdale and Brora. It also skirts closely a number of others, not the least Inverness. These impediments would seriously compromise any sustained high speed running whatever is being driven and whoever is driving it. The route is largely single carriageway throughout with no substantial dual carriageway available until the approaches to Perth, some 220m from John O’Groats. With such long stretches, encountering any level of moderate traffic would make sustained excessive speed impossible. The AA’s Routefinder suggests it would take just short of five hours to cover these 220 miles. Let’s be generous and say the driver might cover this stretch in four hours.

The driver now faces around 550 miles of motorway and dual carriageway until the A30 becomes largely singe carriageway just north of Truro. The Routefinder suggests a legal time for this journey of around eight and a half hours, so averaging about 65mph. Let’s say the driver managed to average a (highly improbable) 120mph throughout. That would take him over four and a half hours. But to get an idea of just how improbable this is, in August Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone (one of the fastest tracks on the F1 calendar) covering 191 miles at an average of 130mph. It’s true that Lewis stopped once for tyres. But Mr Davies also stopped once for fuel (so he says) and I imagine his pitstop took a little longer than that of the winner of the British GP.

So now our intrepid driver is on the A30 where the dual carriageway ends (at Fiddlers Green). He has roughly 40 miles to go to Lands End and an hour to get there. The A30 is mainly single carriageway from here, with just a couple of d/c stretches in the Redruth/Camborne area and the Longrock bypass. He has to skirt Penzance and cross the ten miles from there to the car park at Lands End on roads that are largely country roads across farmland. Does he make it?

I’m afraid Mr Davies is a fantasist and an attention seeker. The problem is his Crown Court trial has cost the taxpayer around £20k.