A DRIVER picked up four speeding tickets in the North-East in just 59 minutes.

PC James Banks had just set up his speed camera in a 30mph stretch on Teesside when Derek Dobson whizzed by in his M-registration Skoda Favorit.

Mr Dobson, 44, was ten minutes late dropping it off at a garage for repairs.

l At 8.53am, he was clocked at 48mph.

l At 9.10am, he was caught again heading home at 49mph in a Rover 214 courtesy car.

l Then he realised that he had left his orange disability card in the Skoda so he turned around and was then booked at 9.48am doing 45mph.

l Finally, heading home at 9.51am for a shower before a fishing trip, he was nabbed at a top speed of 51mph.

Soon afterwards, on the A1085 Middlesbrough to Redcar trunk road, PC Banks checked his equipment was correct and unloaded the cassette film.

Mr Dobson, of Micklow Close, Redcar, said yesterday: "I am normally a careful driver. In 26 years, I've never had a speeding ticket until now. I was late for an appointment and I was the only thing on the road. Then I was trying to cope with all the strange instrumentation on the courtesy car. I'm not the nicest person in the mornings and when I finally saw the policeman with his camera, I stuck my middle finger up after I'd passed him."

Now he could face a driving ban after pleading guilty by letter at Teesside Magistrates' Court to the four speeding offences, on The Broadway, Grangetown, on February 22. Derek, a former county council engineer, who was born with a damaged spine, said: "The car is my lifeline.

"It's my escape from an estate riddled with smackheads and thieves."

He returns to court later this month for sentence.