Muffin the fool

A SERVICE engineer has been fined for eating a muffin, operating a hand-held computer and speaking on the phone — while driving on the M60.

John Paul Mills (43), of Greenside Avenue, Moorside, denied not being in proper control of his car when he appeared at Oldham Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

But the bench heard he had been spotted by an off-duty policeman eating the sandwich as he drove down the slip road.

Roger Woods, prosecuting, told the court how Mills had been driving a Vauxhall Astra Estate on Manchester Road, Oldham, in July, last year, when it was alleged he ate a salad sandwich and used a black PDA computer device, which he uses to log calls for jobs. PC Lawson Ralphs first noticed Mills when travelling alongside him on Manchester Road and pursued him onto the motorway. PC Ralphs said he clearly saw Mills holding a black device in the centre of the steering wheel.

He told the court: “Initially I thought it was a mobile phone but he seemed to be using a slim pen. I was concerned about a lorry he was travelling behind. He pulled out in front of me causing me to break hard and use my horn.”

PC Ralphs produced his warrant card and gestured at Mills to pull off at the Ashton junction. In his defence, Mills, who represented himself, said: “I noticed the driver had his left arm out the window and was waving a black object in an aggressive manner — it could have been a gun.

“I felt frightened and worried. I thought I was a victim of road rage so I decided to leave the motorway for my own safety.”

When he pulled into the lay-by at the Ashton junction, PC Ralphs told him he would be summonsed to court for the offence.

PC Ralphs added: “He had powder round his mouth from the muffin.”

Mr Woods told the defendant: “I put it to you that you were trying to do too many things at once — speaking on the phone, trying to get your computer to work and eating a sandwich on Manchester Road.”

Mills claimed he must have been seen trying to get the device to work as it was running out of battery and making a “ear-piercing noise”, which can only be stopped by plugging it into the cigarette lighter to charge.

He said he had to do this so he could hear his manager on the handsfree phone, who was telling him which jobs to go to.

He added: “I had eaten the majority of the sandwich before I got in the car and I finished the sandwich off when I was parked in traffic.

“I have got a big appetite — I don’t mess about when I am eating a sandwich.”

Chair of the magistrates, Jill Simpson, said the bench considered the combination of Mills’ actions prevented him being in proper control of the vehicle.

Mills was given three points on his licence and ordered to pay a £60 fine with £75 costs.