A driver who did double the speed limit as he approached Peel had had a clean licence for 27 years, a court heard.

David Alan Jones was still travelling at 60mph as his Skoda Octavia entered the 30mph limit approaching Queen Elizabeth II School from St John’s.

The 58-year-old, of Queen Margaret Way, Glen Vine, admitted speeding during the afternoon of March 13.

Defending him, Ian Kermode said his client, an electrical engineering contractor, had written a letter of apology to the court.

He said the police speed trap was in the entrance to the school and the speed was recorded as Jones was decelerating by the cemetery.

’So it was not, strictly speaking, within a residential area and he was slowing down at the time,’ he said.

Describing the matter as a ’lapse in concentration’, he pointed out the weather was fine and dry and road conditions good.

He told the court Jones had been worried about his elderly parents at the time.

’He needs his licence for work to visit different houses and commercial premises and if he could not drive he would not be able to work. He has expressed regret and is pleading for mercy on this matter. He is hoping for a fine and points rather than a disqualification,’ he said.

He was fined £300 with £50 costs and eight points, and was warned he had come very close to a ban.