by Guy Martin
After an hour, I had another word, pointing out that the load was off, the van was legal and I had to get to work to tell them what had happened. The next minute a riot van turned up, two coppers jumped out and handcuffed me.
‘There’s a warrant out for your arrest,’ the Grimsby coppers told me. For speeding. Kind of.
It all started from being caught a year or so before, on the road past Cadwell Park race circuit. Doing 70-odd mph in a 60-mph limit in my red VW Transporter, GEZ 5649. No arguments.
On my day in court for that offence I took a letter from my dad and one from Mr Lancaster, who I helped out driving tractors during harvest, saying that if I lost my licence I’d lose both jobs. I got a whacking fine and some points added to my licence, but I wasn’t banned, so I could continue driving.
The next time I got pulled over was when I was driving from a dentist in Brigg to the hospital in Grimsby the day after I’d knocked my teeth out on the tiller of the narrowboat. I was rushing to the hospital. Again, no excuses, except the bottom half of my face was a broken mess dripping blood down the front of my T-shirt. The copper wasn’t having any of it. Perhaps he thought I was making it up.
A week later, a letter came through the post and I thought, ‘That’s it, I’ve had it this time.’ I replied saying yes, it was me driving the vehicle at that time. Then I was sent another letter, a Notice of Intended Prosecution, giving me the choice to attend court or have it dealt with in my absence. I ticked the box saying I didn’t want to go to court. There was no point. I knew I’d had it, or at least my licence had. I’d accepted my fate, a ban was coming, and didn’t see the point in taking the day off work to be told I was losing my licence, so I ticked the option for them to deal with it in my absence.
It turns out the court date was on the Wednesday, two days before I was pulled over for being overweight in the tipper van on the Friday. I’d been waiting for the letter to come telling me I’d lost my licence. When it hadn’t arrived I just carried on. I had buried my head in the sand. If no one had officially told me to stop driving, I wasn’t about to. I was keeping calm and carrying on. Or I was till the handcuffs snapped shut. I wondered if there was any need for that. I was only doing a day’s work, with part of the tax I would pay at the end of the week going towards paying coppers’ wages. I might have reminded them about that fact at the time. They always like that …
I don’t get on with coppers. I’m sure there are some really nice ones, but I still prefer not to deal with them. Once, I was driving when I saw a police car waiting to come onto a roundabout and one of its headlights was out. I drove around the roundabout again and it took a lot of self-control not to park in front of the car, blocking its route onto the roundabout and do a citizen’s arrest on the driver for being in charge of a car with a defective headlight. I was desperate to give him a lecture.
I was arrested near Grimsby, but when we started driving I realised I’d been in the van a lot longer than it took to get to Grimsby police station. I was eventually put in Scunthorpe nick. These coppers who handcuffed me were all right, to be fair. The handcuffs were going a bit far, I thought, but they let me take my pushbike from the back of the tipper truck into the police van with me.
When I was booked in they did the whole business: took my fingerprints, scraped my mouth with a DNA swab, took my mugshot. They stopped short of the finger up the backside, but they did everything else, then they locked me up. It was Friday afternoon and they told me it would be a struggle to get me in front of a judge that day, so there was a chance I would be in all weekend. I think they knew I wasn’t a dickhead, but they weren’t kidding.
Luckily, they managed to squeeze me in before the court shut. I stood in front of a group of magistrates in my overalls, telling them exactly what had happened. I was told I’d been arrested because I hadn’t attended court when instructed. They were threatening to do me for no insurance on the van too.
I told them about the letters I’d been sent, and me ticking the box to say I would prefer not to attend court. They got hold of the letter and it showed I was telling the truth. The magistrate doing the talking told me I shouldn’t have been sent the form giving me any options, so it was their mistake. They could also see that I was insured.
The magistrate asked me if I needed my licence for work, obviously not knowing I’d been to court a few months earlier, so I told him I did, and that I’d actually been driving the tipper truck for my daily work when I was arrested. He explained they’d made some mistakes, listened to what I said – and I wasn’t telling any porkies, he just didn’t ask if I’d been in court before. He gave me more points and another fine, £200 I think, and let me keep my licence. Again. I tried my hardest to keep a straight face, knowing I’d flown by the seat of my pants and got away with it.
By this stage I was very late for my very first meeting with Mick Moody. I knew he’d been locked up in the past (for working too hard, as he’d put it, or tachograph offences, as the authorities would see it), but I didn’t want to start on the wrong foot with him, so I said I’d been tied up on a job. Again, it wasn’t exactly a lie.
Mick Moody is a legend in the haulage business. He’s rum, but not a rogue. He is a grafter. He pretty much offered me the job there and then and I became his only employee. I now run the maintenance side of things. Once I had my feet under the table I told him the full story about being late for the interview.
With my licence loaded with a lifetime’s worth of penalty points I was driving like a saint, most of the time, but things still managed to go wrong.
I was up in Dumfries, driving to a museum to film something for How Britain Worked in the works Transit, when I was pulled for doing 64 mph in a 60-mph limit. I couldn’t understand why I’d been stopped. I thought the police usually worked to a ten-percent tolerance, on roads that aren’t in built-up areas, to keep things sensible. By that reckoning I should’ve been safe up to 66 mph.
Without even saying a word to me the copper walked up to the door of the van, opened it and looked at the VIN plate, the vehicle identification number, to check the kerb weight of the van. Because it was 2.2 tonnes, the speed limit was 50 mph for this van, not 60. That meant, even with a ten-per-cent tolerance, the limit would be 55 mph.
On that road, there were signs saying anything over 7.5 tonnes was limited to 40 mph, but then there were national speed limits. Anyway, I was wrong, the copper was right. I had another day in court coming up.
When I told my boss about where I was pulled, he dried his teeth. Dumfries is notorious among lorry drivers. If you get done there you’ve had it. Moody gave me the number of his solicitor. Even though Mick had been locked up, this solicitor had got him out of a lot of scrapes.
Before the day arrived I’d spent two grand on legal fees and got to the stage where I decided I wasn’t going to fight it. I was sure I was going to lose my licence and felt I was just throwing good money after bad. The TV bods at North One said I needed help on the legal side, so I had to change plans, but saving my licence wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, I thought it was impossible. I’d pleaded my truck job to keep my licence once, then got away with it when I was taken straight to the magistrates’ for missing my court date. I had already pushed my luck beyond breaking point.
The only defence I had left was related to how banning me would affect other people’s livelihoods; if I didn’t have my licence I couldn’t make the series I was working on, How Britain Worked. That meant the TV production company and all those people involved in the show would be out of work. Of course, all the magistrates had to say was I should’ve thought of that before, but we were clutching at straws.
I’d almost convinced myself it wouldn’t be that bad losing my licence. I could still ride my pushbike to truck breakdowns for Moody with a mobile tool-kit. The reality was a truck driver having to wait three hours for me to do a 50-mile trip. I doubt it would’ve gone down well.
The week before the court date I was told by the solicitor to buy a sm
art shirt, and that was what made me realise I was trying to be someone I’m not. I was happier to just walk in, as I am, tell them my side of the story and see what happened. If I wasn’t even willing to dress up smartly, what was the point in spending another £800 on top of the two grand, to take someone to defend me? I rang the solicitor up and left a message telling them not to bother sending anyone, I’d take my chances on my own. The solicitor rang me back, convincing me we had a good case, for this, this and this reason.
The night before the court appearance Andy Spellman stayed at my house. He was going to be a witness for the defence and had a load of carefully thought-out arguments. We left home at four in the morning and drove to meet Moody, in Grimsby, for the long drive north.
Moody chain-smoked all the way there. Still, the atmosphere was all right. He didn’t say it until later, but he was thinking I would be given a two-year driving ban and a big fine. If I was very lucky, I’d get a 12-month ban. I was thinking along the same lines while I was signing hundreds of photos in the back of the Range Rover for the 2013 calendar Andy had just ordered. I still hadn’t bought a shirt and tie, and ended up going in my Red Torpedo chequered shirt and jeans.
I arrived with all these letters from the TV company, and one from Moody stating that without a licence I was not much use to him, even though I’d used a similar defence before and it’s something you can only use once in a blue moon. It was a desperate roll of the dice.
I was supposed to be seen in court at ten, but was told my hearing had been put back. The three of us went for a coffee, then returned to the court to be told my case had been put back again.
Members of the public are allowed to sit in on the hearings, so I walked in and sat down to get a feel for how things were going on other cases. Lots of the accused had dead-end lives, and there was story after story of misery. There were details of heroin addicts attacking people. It was an eye-opener, all of it reminding me how lucky I am.
The local brief, who had been assigned by Moody’s solicitor back in Lincolnshire, didn’t give me much of a steer on what I was supposed to do or say. Then, after four in the afternoon, we got the shout and the panic started. I walked into the court and was pointed into the dock, behind a glass screen. Before the hearing even started I had 18 points on my licence. I was hardly full of confidence.
Andy, being the chief witness for my defence, was sent to another room outside the court and across the corridor so he couldn’t hear what I was saying. The brief had been sent notes by Moody’s legal representative, but as things got underway whatever he was saying didn’t seem to be cutting much ice with the magistrates, even though he was charging like the Light Brigade.
Moody sat at the back of the court. Andy could look through a toughened glass panel in the door of the room he was in, through another square glass panel in the court room and just see my truck boss sat in the public gallery.
I was giving evidence, and out of my line of vision Moody was trying to signal to Andy how things were going. At this point I was, in the words of Mick, a quivering wreck, but the proceedings started well. Andy saw Moody give a subtle, but clear thumbs up. Then the chairman of the magistrates asked why I needed my licence and I told him it was for my regular spud-picking job on a Wednesday night. With that Mick threw his head in his hands and started rocking back and forth. I was spouting nonsense. Then I blurted out that the TV show I was filming, the one I needed my driving licence for, was called Speed. Hearing that, Moody started drawing his finger across his throat, to show Andy how well it was all going. Mick was sure I’d had it. I was totally out of my comfort zone. I was isolated in the dock. Shitting it.
Eventually, Andy was brought in. He was wearing a suit. He laid out the arguments, explaining I needed my licence for the TV work, because it involved driving long distances all over the country to do stuff. He explained that I would lose my TV contract, and that would have a knock-on effect on Andy’s own company. He went on to say I’d lose the profile that he’d worked hard to build up (which wouldn’t be a disaster from my point of view); I’d be dropped from North One and Channel 4, and therefore other people who made programmes I was in would lose income because of it. Andy added that Channel 4 would lose commercial revenue they’d worked hard to get in these tough economic times. He made it sound like the world would stop spinning if Guy Martin lost his licence. He had also organised letters to be sent from charities I’d helped, including Spinal Research, to say nice things about me. Andy wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t holding back either, and things would certainly have gone tits up if I lost my licence.
The prosecuting solicitor said he knew who I was, mentioning the motorcycling and the TV show he’d seen. ‘That’s the last thing I need,’ I thought, ‘that they know I’m a motorcycle racer as well.’ He said he was an advanced motorcycle instructor.
The magistrates then argued, as we knew they would, that if the TV job was so big the production company making the show could supply a driver to ferry me to the filming locations. It was hard to argue against. Andy, who was speaking on the side of the TV lot, said he was only here to help me keep my licence so it didn’t affect the earnings of other people, and my licence was essential to the filming and the jobs of the crew. Andy came back to them with an explanation that I had to drive in the series, to give the idea of the journey and my everyday life, so a taxi wouldn’t be any use. He said this wasn’t Top Gear, all handbrake turns on an airfield. He pointed that I didn’t ever ride motorcycles on the road, only when I was racing.
Then a weird thing happened. From where I was sat, and it’s clear I’m no legal expert, it seemed the prosecuting lawyer started saying stuff to back up our argument, agreeing with us rather than trying to nail us. At that point the chairman of the magistrates started throwing his head around saying, ‘This is ridiculous! Mr Martin has 18 points on his licence already! He’s obviously a total liability on the road.’
When all the questions had been asked and answered, the magistrates left the court to deliberate. With everyone else remaining in the court, the prosecuting solicitor came up and said, ‘I saw you at the TT. The way you boys race around there is amazing. I ride a motorbike. How do you get your knee down?’
A few minutes later the magistrates all came back into the court and the judge gave the verdict, saying, ‘In all my time, I have never known anyone have this many points and keep their licence. I won’t ban you, but I’ll give you another three penalty points and a fine of … At this point, me, Andy and Mick were all expecting it to be thousands. Then he said ‘One hundred and sixty pounds.’
He added, ‘I’ve been a magistrate in this area for 20 years and I’ve never let anyone with that many points keep their licence, but for the reasons you’ve given I’m going to let you.’
The three points took me up to 21, a winning hand at black jack, but not ideal to have on a driving licence. Normally, reaching 12 penalty points means an instant ban.
I just mumbled back that I was genuinely sorry and I genuinely didn’t know the speed limit was 50, when it would’ve been 60 in a car. I was very sorry. There wasn’t a lie told.
When I walked out of the court I was still a bag of nerves. I couldn’t deal with the atmosphere or the situation. I like to think they’d seen sense. Yes, I’d been to court for traffic offences twice before, and I should’ve known better, but I had been driving like a saint, just 4 mph above the limit really.
The last case of the day was lad who had been caught doing 81 in a 70 and he got banned. Apparently, he tweeted like mad that I’d been in court and got away with it, just because I’d been on TV. Having a high profile wasn’t always a bad thing. I was lucky I had people to argue my case, while the lad whose case followed mine didn’t.
CHAPTER 17
THAT FELLA OFF THE TELLY
‘Then I noticed I was beginning to have weird thoughts.’
WHEN MAGAZINES FIRST started writing about me and asking me to contribute by going on road tests and new bikes lau
nches, it was still unusual if I was recognised at anything other than a road race meeting, and then it was only the race fans who noticed me. I remember going to see an exhibition of TT photos in London. I had just parked my van, and was looking for a parking ticket machine when someone recognised me from my column in Performance Bikes – I was amazed. It was a magazine I’d always read, and if people read PB they were right folk. When the TT coverage grew and began to be shown on ITV. and then the film Closer to the Edge came out, I started to get mobbed at the TT and bike shows.
I don’t regret doing Closer to the Edge. I’ve watched it twice, at a screening and then at a premiere in London, and it is me, I come across how I am. The film also opened a lot of doors. But until I saw the film I didn’t realise how much I was in it. I went to a private screening with Steph and Andy, and before I got on the tube to start going home, me and Steph had to call into a nearby pub and have a drink. We were both speechless, just shaking our heads in disbelief. They were filming a bunch of riders at the TT, but everything that happened to me must’ve made them choose to focus on me a bit more. If I hadn’t crashed, perhaps things would have turned out differently.
The boat programme went out on the BBC in 2011, twice a week for six weeks, and that meant even more people recognised me. The first programme was due to go on at seven o’ clock, but I was flying to Spain for a week’s testing in Cartagena at exactly that time. It couldn’t have been timed better. I landed in Spain, switched my phone on and there must have been a hundred text messages. I was glad to be out of it. After that people started recognising me in Tesco.
I was working as a labourer in Grimsby at the time and we’d going to the local supermarket to buy our butties. If someone said, ‘I know who you are,’ one of the lads I worked with would stop dead, look at me and laugh, saying, ‘You’re right, he does look like that fella off the telly, loads of people say that.’ Then we’d just walk off. They got brilliant at it.