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Noel Gallagher given £1k fine and six points over driving offence – even though he can’t even drive!

Noel Gallagher must pay a court more than £1,000 for failing to tell police who was driving his Range Rover.

The former Oasis guitarist, 56, who cannot drive, was also handed six penalty points for failing to give information relating to the identification of a driver when required by magistrates earlier this week.

Gallagher’s Range Rover was speeding at 41mph on a 30mph stretch of the A40 in Edgware Road, West London, last October when it was clocked by a camera, the Evening Standard newspaper reported.

The music star’s case was dealt with at Willesden Magistrates Court on Wednesday under the little-known Single Justice Procedure which meant he did not have to appear in person.

JPs fined the High Flying Birds frontman £742 and told him to pay a £296 victim surcharge plus £100 costs, a court official confirmed to PA news agency.

His manager declined to comment.

In April, the star told Zoe Ball on Radio 4 he gave up on learning to drive at the height of Oasis’ popularity in the 1990s after being mobbed by fans during a lesson.

He said: “I have had one driving lesson in the 90s and I was driving round a housing estate in Slough and she (the instructor) said to me, ‘if you just indicate and pull over here’ then I pulled over.

“She got out the car she said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute’, she came out with her mum, she drove me to her house.

“Then the local comprehensive bell went and they all came out.

“This is at the height of Oasis-mania and I was like never, never again.”

Single Justice Procedure cases can be dealt with by a single magistrate remotely using paperwork.

It is commonly used to deal with minor road traffic and TV licensing offences, as well as, more recently, breaches of coronavirus rules.

Advice to defendants on the Government website states that if someone pleads not guilty under the procedure they “have to go to court and give information to the magistrates in person” but can be found guilty after 21 days if they do not respond to a letter.

Related: Piers Morgan comes out to bat for Phillip Schofield, saying he’s ‘not committed a crime’

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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