MP's totting up ban after using a mobile phone while drivin

A former barrister and human rights lawyer, who was elected as a Bolton MP in May, has been disqualified from driving under the totting up system after she admitted using a mobile phone while driving.

Bolton magistrates were told that Yasmin Qureshi was seen by police in the town four days after the General Election on May 10 speaking on her phone while driving her Vauxhall Astra. When stopped, she was also found not to have valid insurance for the vehicle.

It was stated that she had committed a previous offence of using her phone while driving a year earlier and was found guilty of speeding charges in 2007 and 2009.

The MP's solicitor said that she had not knowingly failed to pay for insurance and there had been some type of administrative error.

She had used the phone to respond to a call from her sister because their mother was ill, he said. He added that a driving ban would inconvenience her greatly when she needed to visit constituents in Bolton South East.

In sentencing, the magistrates said that although driving without insurance was a serious offence because of evidence that she had been insured in previous years they accepted there had been an oversight. The fine was reduced because of her relatively early guilty plea.

As well as a six-month ban, she was fined £950 for driving uninsured, £300 for using a mobile phone while driving and has to pay £35 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.