A speeding driver used a James Bond-style smokescreen to try
and shake off police when he was caught speeding.
Simon Chaplin, 62, used a bucket of diesel, a pump and some
pipes behind the passenger seat of his Peugeot 309 to produce ‘colossal’
amounts of smoke.
He could activate the device at the flick of a switch,
covering the carriageway behind him with fumes.
Chaplin used it when a police officer tried to pull him over
for speeding – but it actually ended up being his downfall.
Police were able to follow the smoke trail through country
roads near Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.
He was stopped five miles up the road when he pulled into a
farmyard.
PC Dafydd Birch said: ‘There was a vast amount of dense
smoke coming out the back. It completely obscured the road.
‘I had to slow down and keep a distance. I knew when he had
turned left only by following the smoke he left behind.
‘At times I came to an almost complete stop because of the
smoke. I had to look across the top of the hedgerows to see where he had gone.
‘For a while I could not see the car but in the distance I
could see the smoke going up a hill towards the village of Crundale.
‘I caught up with him
but the smoke kept coming thick and fast.’
Chaplin was convicted of causing a danger to other road
users by deliberately causing smoke to be emitted.
He saw the blue lights ‘but sort of panicked’ and said the
smoke device was used to kill moles and belonged to someone else.
Judge Elwen Evans QC, said: ‘You were driving a vehicle when
a police officer told you to pull over but you took that officer a considerable
distance of some five miles.
‘During that pursuit you activated a contraption which was
dangerous and caused smoke to be emitted from the exhaust.
‘It is in very unusual circumstances that you find yourself
before the court. I do not want to see you here again.’
Chaplin also pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and
threatening behaviour.
He was handed a community order of 100 hours unpaid work and
given six points on his licence.
John Hipkin, defending, said: ‘This is a man with his
eccentricities but he is not an unpleasant individual.’
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