IT MAY be on its way out, but Poole’s infamous speed on green speed camera is still claiming victims.
Poole pensioner Alan Laflain was flashed three times in 10 days by the Holes Bay device as he drove to help his sick wife.
Despite an unblemished 57-year driving career, the 74-year-old is now teetering on the brink of a driving ban.
Mr Laflain’s disabled wife had been transferred to Poole Hospital from Christchurch after suffering a fractured pelvis and spine.
The pensioner, of Waterloo Road, said he had seen 50mph signs on Holes Bay Road and driven accordingly.
However, the road becomes a 30mph limit just before the camera, catching out unwitting drivers.
Mr Laflain admitted the first offence, but unsuccessfully challenged the subsequent two in court.
It has left him with nine points on his previously clean licence and just one transgression away from a possible ban.
“I was shocked to find out that I had exceeded the speed limit in the first place,” said Mr Laflain, who has been forced to deal with the legal fallout from the speeding in the wake of his wife’s subsequent death.
“If I had been caught by a police officer rather than a camera on the first offence, they would have pointed out the change in speed limit.
“I wouldn’t have then been caught out after that.”
Ian Belchamber, from anti-camera campaign group Dorset Speed, said the case demonstrated the “disproportionate suffering caused by the extreme unfairness and lack of the spirit of the law”.
The unpopular Holes Bay camera, which was on course to generate £1m in its first year of operation, is now set to be axed due to funding cuts.
It will remain as a red light camera to catch drivers skipping the traffic lights, but will no longer be used for speeding prosecution.
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