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news
CyclingMikey, City of London Magistrates (credit - CyclingMikey Youtube)Top TV comedy producer who “flipped the bird” and told CyclingMikey to “go f*** yourself” fined over £2,000 and handed six points for phone use while driving
A comedian and leading television executive has received six points on his licence and been fined over £2,000 after reacting angrily when CyclingMikey confronted him for typing on his phone “with both hands” while driving in traffic in London.
Jimmy Mulville, the co-founder of Hat Trick Productions, the company behind hit TV programmes such as Have I Got News For You, Father Ted, Derry Girls, and Room 101, was spotted using his phone behind the wheel by the road safety campaigner and YouTuber, real name Mike van Erp, while driving over Battersea Bridge last July, the Evening Standard reports.
According to Van Erp, after being confronted over his phone use, Mulville “flipped the bird” and shouted at the cyclist “go f*** yourself”.
> Tired of road crime": CyclingMikey on episode 16 of the road.cc Podcast
Mulville, who was previously banned from driving in 2020 and handed another three points last October for speeding, was prosecuted for driving while using his mobile phone after not paying a Fixed Penalty fine.
Represented by Freeman and Co, the law firm of Nick Freeman – commonly known as Mr Loophole due to his ability to secure acquittals for celebrity clients charged with motoring offences – Mulville initially challenged much of the evidence put forward by the Metropolitan Police, including the accusation that he used his phone behind the wheel.
However, at City of London magistrates court earlier this week, the 68-year-old comedian – who was absent from the trial due to illness – conceded that he was using his phone to look at a text.
> Mr Loophole applauds police action against "vigilante cyclists" filming law-breaking drivers
Mulville was found guilty of driving while using his mobile phone and ordered to pay a £1,000 fine, plus £625 in costs and a £400 court fee. He also received six points on his driving licence.
“This was entirely out of character for him”, his barrister Sam Thomas told the court. “At the time, there were family concerns and he did look at the phone to look at a text message.”
Describing the incident, road safety activist Van Erp said that he was cycling home when he noticed the driver of an Aston Martin Rapide not keeping up with slow moving traffic, before accelerating sharply, a move described by the cyclist as the “WhatsApp gap”.
“I commented to myself it was symptomatic of a distracted driver and I wondered if he was on the phone”, he told the court. “I stopped next to the driver’s side window of the Aston Martin, I saw the driver was busy typing on the phone.”
Van Erp claimed he saw Mulville “typing with both hands”, before quickly shutting down the app when he realised he was being watched.
He added: “At this point he flipped me the bird and mouthed to me something rude. I believe it was ‘go f*** yourself’.”
> Taxi driver warns CyclingMikey he will "end up needing the dentist" after challenging phone use
Van Erp, known as CyclingMikey on social media, has reported thousands of law-breaking drivers over the years, with 800 successful prosecutions in the last five years and 383 reports last year.
He attracted attention for particularly high-profile cases, such as catching Guy Ritchie and Chris Eubank using their phones while driving, with the film director being banned from driving for six months as a result, while the retired boxer was given three penalty points and told to pay £280 in fines, court costs, and fees.
One of his latest videos, reported on by road.cc earlier this week and also stemming from July 2022, showed a London taxi driver telling the camera cyclist that he will “end up needing the dentist” after he challenged the professional driver’s mobile phone use behind the wheel.
However, the cab driver, who Mikey filmed in Hyde Park, avoided police prosecution due to staff dealing with an IT system change, with Van Erp adding that they had been left understaffed and that the report subsequently ran out of time.
In January, speaking to road.cc, Mikey said “people need to see justice being done” and that any abuse he receives is simply because some motorists “feel they have the right to drive how they want”.
“In the beginning of my camera work, almost 17 years ago, I took a lot of strain at the abuse thrown my way,” he said. “I’d answer each comment seriously. Nowadays, there has been such a torrent of abuse and lies about me that I just let most of it wash off me.
“In the UK cyclists are considered by society to be ‘cockroaches of the road’, unworthy scum who freeload on the public highway and are terrible lawbreakers. For such a person to challenge a driver for lawbreaking is a massive affront to the social order, and people don’t like this.
“Many of those throwing abuse also feel that they have the right to drive how they want, and that nobody can tell them what to do. They see the prosecutions, and they are afraid of the consequences, and they are angry that someone dares to do this to them.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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89 comments
I don't think you needed to post anything.
Certainly not on a two week old thread when you had no new arguement to make.
But, if you wanted to post things, fine, but don't expect everyone to agree with you.
It came up in my feed today, so it's new to me! None of this is necessary! (And I didn't expect to be agreed with, he's right about the zealots!)
And totally ditto to you! Calling me for posting and then posting yourself! What's the difference?! Again it's rhetorical, you don't have to respond.. unless you want to (which you can if you like, as will
I'm not sure I like or agree with gimpl, but his point here was justified. He was simply agreeing that Micky is over the top in some cases, which doesn't really help anyone.
We all agreed that the comedian was a prick and Micky did good work here.
Somehow that's came to having to get the dictionary out! What a way to make a small point that we all mainly agreed on, into a fight.
The whole thing is embarrassing.
People are free to have their own opinions of Mikey and I'd say that it's a valid opinion to think that Mikey is over the top in some cases (not an opinion that I agree with, myself). Using the word 'vigilante' though is totally wrong and unfair to Mikey. It's the equivalent of going around and calling all teachers pedophiles because they work with children - you don't need a dictionary to realise that it's just done to besmirch people that happen to be trying to make the world a little bit better.
He's very close to a vigilante, it's such a small difference that it's not worth arguing about. So why are you.
No. No, it’s not. How is observing a crime and then reporting it to the correct authorities, remotely close to the crime of taking the law into your own hands and dealing out your own punishments?
Vigilantism is illegal and so it is libellous to refer to Mikey as a vigilante. Good luck explaining to a lawyer that it's not defamation due to it just being a "small difference".
Did you take lessons to be this obtuse or does it come naturally?
So am I vigilante when I report the description of somebody assaulting someone else?
That is a justified opinion, but that's not what he said. Not even close.
No. He made a point that I didn’t agree with (he literally accused Mikey of a crime), which is why I disagreed with it.
…exactly? Explain to me how an unrelated collection of people who’ve never met, and who share nothing in common except for all being members of Road.cc (but have no formal affiliation with Road.cc) satisfies any of those definitions.
So, as I said. “cadre” = wrong word.
it's all part of the dark forces, people are being trained to oppose certain views on the internet. It's the cycling illuminati taking over.
Anyway, you can all say what you like now - I'm out, I have work to do.
Mikey.
You are my patron Saint of...
EWW
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
Run for office please...Mikey. You must!
Bloody hell! In the space of a week we've had both a Gramsci quote and a Wheeler Wilcox poem on road.cc all without a troll to be found; wonderful.
Jimmy Mul..vile. A Twasser... cuntundrum... cuckoldrum.... fuckler.... CUNT.
Discuss....
I agree
I also agree.
A comedian and leading television executive has received six points on his licence and been fined over £2,000......
Not sure he'll see the funny side of this, or will he be working it into his next standup routine?
Can't help having a little snigger myself.
He hasn't been a performing comedian for at least 35 years, Badvoc would say longer, but he never was a stand up anyway.
I did rather enjoy "Who Dares Wins" back in the 80s, in which he appeared.
Wasn't he also in Chelmsford 123?
Also on the radio, in Old Harry's Game. He played Thomas, a despised CEO of a privatised utility who (among other things) attempted to overthrow Satan and was notably a poor driver.
He was. I used to enjoy that. I wonder why it was never as successful as some of his other stuff.
For the very expensive barrister, you don't need both hands to read a text.
And the road safety expert lawyer isn't cheap either.
Mikey will post the evidence soon, I'm sure, so we can all see how bang to rights the not at all self entitled drivest is...
A pathetic fine for a recidivist road criminal.
He should have been banned again, not that it would make much difference.
His solicitor said "This was entirely out of character for him", really? Banned in 2020 and points in 2022, paints him as a serial offender.
Blimey I wouldn't have recognised him.
As for, “This was entirely out of character for him” his most recent record begs to differ;
Mulville, who was previously banned from driving in 2020 and handed another three points last October for speeding, was prosecuted for driving while using his mobile phone after not paying a Fixed Penalty fine.
I couldn't agree more. It looks like the judge took it with a pinch of salt as well. But wouldn't it be nice to hear a judge say that to a defence barrister. They could also point out that people are supposed to tell the truth in court, including barristers.
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