A GRANDMOTHER spoiled a 34-year unblemished driving record while on a school run, a court heard.

Prosecutor Mark Haigh told Harrogate magistrates how Valerie Wood had reversed her Land Rover Discovery into a Rover on the car park of Harrogate's Rossett Sports Centre as she collected her grandson from nearby Rossett School.

She had driven off after the accident, which involved the car of another grandmother, who was also collecting grandchildren. But another motorist saw what happened.

Farmer's wife Wood, 58, pleaded guilty to careless driving and failing to stop after an accident and an offence of failing to report the incident was dropped.

Richard Buchanan, defending, said Wood, of Dairy Farm, Pottery Lane, Littlethorpe, Ripon, said vehicles had been left ''higgledy-piggledy'' on the car park and she had hit the front of the Rover. Her grandson and his girlfriend had had a look but did not see any damage.

She had been worried about her 92-year-old father who had left hospital the day before the incident after being diagnosed with terminal bone cancer.

Mr Buchanan said Wood, who had driven up to 17,000 miles a year for 34 years without a blot on her record, was a volunteer driver for Age Concern and a hospital charity.

Wood was fined a total of £160 with £45 costs and six penalty points.