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I'm not asking you to approve of the crime committed by Joy Rees. But you might like to show her some sympathy. And more importantly, you should learn some valuable lessons from the mistakes she made inside and outside her car.

By Mike Rutherford

23rd May 2006

The 39-year-old single mum was caught on camera doing 51mph in a 40 zone. That's the sort of misdemeanour most of us have been guilty of at some point. Difference is we didn't go to jail for exceeding the speed limit by 20-something per cent. Joy did - and here's how.

In short, she's been found guilty of perverting the course of justice. She copped a speeding ticket and instead of taking it on the chin, paying the £60 fine and accepting another three points on her licence, she pretended that a distant relative - her former sister-in-law Joanne Aikens, a resident of San Francisco - was driving the car. Bad move. The UK authorities were unconvinced by Joy's story. And they were deeply unimpressed when she forged Joanne's signature. The damning photographic evidence provided by the forward-facing speed camera in Plymouth, Devon showed that Joy was behind the wheel at 2.02 on the afternoon of 18 July 2005. A few more enquiries proved that at precisely this time, ex-sis-in-law Joanne was nowhere near Britain, let alone the camera lens. Oops!

What Joy Rees did was wrong, but comprehensible. Many of us, Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman included, have joked about or even half-considered allowing 'friends or loved ones' to inherit some of our tickets. But then we come to our senses, we feel ashamed that such criminal thoughts entered our heads and we take our punishment of points and fines. Or in the case of Joy Rees, we don't. And that's why she's just been locked up for six months. Sounds like a harsh sentence, doesn't it? Especially for a young mother trying to bring up a son on her own, while doing an important job as a community nurse. For all we know, she might have been rushing to pick up her boy or treat a needy patient at 2.02 on 18 July. Those of us living in the real world don't have a big problem with you speeding, Joy. But we think you're daft for trying to wriggle out of a comparatively harmless £60 fine and three points.

As you read this, Joy Rees is almost certainly scared and sobbing in jail. Her driving offence was merely run of the mill, her attempt to blame someone else for her excessive speed wrong, but she already knows that, she'll never dare lie to the authorities again and I'm sure she'd happily volunteer to do several hundred hours of community service (or even unpaid nursing work) in return for an immediate release.

In recent days, Joy Rees hasn't been the only one in the news for committing transport-related crimes. She's a harmless, productive, valuable, tax-paying woman who's been incarcerated after a few misguided moments of madness. And at the same time as she was shown her prison mattress, the welcome mat was rolled out for violent, dangerous, international hijackers who committed heinous crimes of armed terrorism in UK airspace and on our soil as they petrified passengers on a Stansted-bound plane. Unbelievably, these guys have not been ordered to go to jail or even returned to their country of origin, after entering ours illegally. Now that's what I call a proper perversion of the course of British justice. Whatever happened to the credible Britain that used to have the world's best and most highly-respected legal system?

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