The archbishop of Canterbury has claimed he repeatedly tried to resolve a speeding ticket with the Metropolitan police but was denied three times before being handed three points on his licence and ordered to pay £510.
Justin Welby was prosecuted at a private hearing on Wednesday after being caught in his Volkswagen Golf doing 25mph in a 20mph zone along the Albert Embankment in central London on 2 October last year.
The comments on Friday top a turbulent seven days after Welby presided over the King Charles’s coronation last weekend. The conviction and punishment at Lavender Hill magistrates court occurred on the same day as his intervention in the House of Lords against Rishi Sunak’s illegal migration bill.
Welby, 67, admitted the offence online and was ordered to pay a fine of £300, a £120 victim surcharge and £90 in costs, a court spokesperson said. The prosecution was dealt with through written evidence in a private hearing, known as a single justice procedure.
A Lambeth Palace spokesperson later said the archbishop had no idea his case had reached the courts. They said the religious leader had kept proof that he tried to pay the fine three times before it reached the courts but was stonewalled due to administrative errors.
The spokesperson said: “Yes, the archbishop knows about it but hadn’t been notified that it had gone to court. He has tried to resolve this and pay the fine three times. He has all the paperwork to prove that he has tried to pay. Admin errors seem to be causing problems.”
Court papers seen by the Evening Standard show that the Met wrote to Welby after he triggered a speed camera while driving alongside the River Thames, and he admitted being behind the wheel.
The notice of intended prosecution from the police was addressed to “Arch Justin Welby”, giving his home address as Lambeth Palace.
“On 02-10-2022 at 11.05am at A3036 Albert Embankment a motor vehicle activated a speed camera,” a police worker, Andrew Chapman, said in a statement to the court. “The speed recorded by means of RedSpeed SpeedCurb was 25mph.”
It has been a dramatic week for the Church of England’s most senior bishop. Last Saturday, he crowned King Charles at Westminster Abbey in a ceremony watched by 20 million Britons and many more worldwide.
On Wednesday, he said the government’s flagship illegal migration bill was “morally unacceptable” and would “damage the UK’s interests and reputation at home and abroad”.
In a withering attack on Sunak and Suella Braverman’s plan, Welby said it would not fulfil the prime minister’s pledge to “stop the boats”.
