A PHOTOGRAPHER who sped at more than 100 mph in a Mini Cooper along the A1M near South Milford has kept his licence.

Keith John Heppell was trying to get out of the way of a motorbike coming up fast behind him, said Colin Byrne, mitigating.

He had moved out to overtake a lorry and another vehicle and could not get back into the inside land.

“It was an instant decision,” said Mr Byrne. “He had a lorry to his left and he felt trapped.”

Heppell, 55, of Field End, Witchford, Ely, who works for the Cambridge News, pleaded guilty to speeding at 103mph on July 20 on the southbound carriageway. He had a clean licence.

York magistrates fined him £255 with £85 prosecution costs and a £26 statutory surcharge. They also put six penalty points on his licence.

The court heard weather conditions were fine and dry and traffic conditions were normal when he was spotted by a traffic policeman with a speed gun.

Byrne said without his licence, Heppell would lose his job. Since April 2013, he had been on 1,222 separate assignments in different parts of the country and taken 17,000 photographs.