Former Terras boss cleared of speeding (From Dorset Echo)

Former Terras boss cleared of speeding

9:53am Friday 22nd August 2008 in News By Echo Reporter

FORMER Weymouth Football Club player-manager Jason Tindall has been cleared of driving charges.

Tindall, 30, of Stevenson Crescent, Parkstone, had denied speeding at 47 mph in a 30mph limit in Radipole Lane, Weymouth.

He also denied failing to provide police with information about who was driving the leased car at the time.

Magistrates have dropped the charge of speeding and cleared him of failing to provide police with information.

They accepted that he had not been driving and was not able to find out who had been.

Tindall, formerly of Sandbanks Road, Poole, had denied speeding on Radipole Lane on October 15 last year.

The case had been proved in his absence on June 11.

At that stage the magistrates had thought nothing had been heard from him.

The court adjourned sentencing for details of his driving record to be obtained.

The form indicating that Tindall was denying the offences was received by the court five days after that hearing, after having been sent to the traffic ticket office.

Magistrates agreed in July to the case being reopened and quashed the earlier conviction.

At that hearing in July the court was told that Tindall intended to call two witnesses to the speeding trial and these would be the Weymouth football club's former player and physiotherapist Stuart Douglas and assistant manager Marcus Browning.

He said he hadn't been driving the Peugeot when it was caught speeding on camera - and the court was told that the picture did not show who had been in the car.

Tindall said that when the speed camera was activated he had been training and that his car keys would at that time have been left on his peg in a club changing room.

The court was told that three had gone for the training session in the physiotherapist's car.

The Blandford court was told in the latest hearing on August 20 that the prosecution was only proceeding with the allegation that Tindall had not provided information which would have identified who had been the driver of the car.

Tindall told the court that when he received the notice about the speeding allegation he had checked his diary to see what he had been doing.

He had also made his own investigations with players and staff at the club - but no one had owned up to taking out the car.

He told the court that though he was the main user of the car which had been leased to the club: "Other people had used it in the past, on quite a few occasions."