Woman Jailed After Blaming Speeding Tickets On Dead Husband

Woman Jailed After Blaming Speeding Tickets On Dead Husband

A woman in Nottingham, U.K., managed to drive away two speeding tickets in 2008 by claiming her husband was the man behind the wheel.

Problem is, he's been dead since 2007.

Catherine Goodwin, 60, got six months in jail for two counts of perverting the course of justice and two of making fraudulent applications to get a passport, the Derby Telegraph reports.

Authorities say a car driven by Catherine Goodwin, 60, was caught speeding on two occasions in 2008 by speed cameras.

Goodwin paid the fines but avoided getting personally penalized by claiming her husband, Alan, had been doing the driving.

Six penalty points were put on the dead man's driving record, which existed despite his departure.

No one at the United Kingdom's Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency was aware of that little sticking point until 2011, when Goodwin applied for a passport under her husband's name.

That passport form was returned so she resubmitted the application, this time using a photo of a man she met in Spain, the Nottingham Post reports.

Civil servants noticed something was up and alerted the police, who figured out that Goodwin's husband had died.

Goodwin's lawyer, Steve Gosnell, told the court his client had been her husband's "primary carer" and that she became depressed after his death.

She claimed that after his death, loan sharks who had lent him money chased her to Spain.

"She was not thinking clearly, not thinking as she would normally. She was not aware of the seriousness of what she has done," Gosnell said, according to the Mirror.

Judge Ebrahim Mooncey wasn't sympathetic.

"It sounds quite callous what you did. Perverting justice is attacking the very fabric of the justice system," he said in court. "Your husband may have been very demanding and a spendthrift and you spent a lot of time looking after him before he died. But that doesn't excuse what you did."

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