A MOTORIST who made “determined” efforts to evade a speeding conviction was today (Thursday May 23) jailed for four months.

Police clocked a Nissan truck travelling at 114-miles per hour on a 70-limit stretch of the A66 at Galley Bank, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, shortly before 3pm on June 12 last year.

Durham Crown Court heard it was leased by Industrial Valves Ltd, which indicated employee, hydrologist Jonathan Peter Davis, had access to the vehicle at the time.

John Gillette, prosecuting, said Davis asked to see a photograph of the vehicle, but when it was provided he claimed it was unclear who was at the wheel.

He claimed to have no recollection of being on the A66, adding it was “not in his nature” to go at such a speed.

Davis said he had been on a speed awareness course and supported a local Speed Watch campaign, while claiming he was on annual leave near his home in Nottinghamshire on the day in question.

He produced a receipt claiming he bought horse feed in Nottinghamshire an hour after the speeding offence and said the clocked vehicle must have been ‘cloned’, bearing a copy of his registration plate.

Police visited his home and found he had changed the look of the truck, adding an amber light to the roof, and re-arranging window stickers.

Further inquiries revealed the credit card used to buy horse feed was used at a MacDonald’s restaurant in Falkirk, Scotland, earlier that day.

Despite further denials, 40-year-old Davis, of Lound, near Retford, finally admitted perverting the course of justice at the court last Friday (May 17).

Stuart Graham, mitigating, told today's sentencing hearing the long-serving, decorated ex-Royal Navy sub-mariner has worked as a highly-respected hydrologist in recent years, while also performing valued charitable and community work.

He has six existing points on his licence for speeding and feared he would lose his licence and his job.

“It didn’t start out as a bid to evade liability but, ‘the more he kept digging, the deeper he got into it.’

“It was foolishness beyond belief, the more it built up.”

But, Judge Christopher Prince described it as, “a determined and not unsophisticated deception to escape the consequences of speeding.”

He added that it would send the wrong message to other speeders trying to evade liability if a custodial sentence was not imposed.

Davis remains to be dealt with by South Durham magistrates for the speeding offence.