Peterborough: Speeding MP off roads after asking for a ban

Conservative Paul Bristow, the MP for Peterborough, said he would accept a ban in a newspaper column

An MP has been given a 28-day driving ban after admitting speeding and asking to be banned to avoid "hypocrisy".

Paul Bristow, who represents Peterborough, was caught driving at 76mph (122 km/h) on the 50mph (80 km/h) A1 at Buckden, Cambridgeshire.

The Conservative pleaded guilty to the 20 November offence at Peterborough Magistrates' Court.

He said earlier this year: "Only by asking to be disqualified can I look constituents in the eye."

In his column in the Peterborough Telegraph, the MP said to retain credibility, he had to admit responsibility.

"I need to be able to campaign about speeding on residential streets without any suggestion of hypocrisy," he wrote.

Mr Bristow said he could not call for those caught speeding "to have consequences, without accepting that my own misjudgements on the A1 should too".

He was also fined £667, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £68 and a further £110 costs.

Mr Bristow won the Peterborough seat in the 2019 general election, having come third in the city's by-election earlier that year.

One of the constituency's previous MPs, Labour's Fiona Onasanya, was jailed and then removed from the seat in April 2019, after she lied about a speeding offence.