Arsenal legend Paul Merson banned from driving over speeding tickets
Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson has been banned from driving for six months after racking up a series of speeding offences.
The England midfielder and Arsenal legend, 58, admitted breaking the speed limit three times in the space of a month last year while driving aroundwest London, and a fourth time in Surrey last February.
Merson appeared at Guildford magistrates court on Friday to be sentenced for those charges.
He was handed 12 penalty points, leading to a six-month driving ban, and was ordered to pay £2,640 in fines, a victim surcharge of £1,056, and prosecution costs of £110.
The former footballer has found himself in trouble with the law in the past, when he was handed a 14-month driving ban in 2012 for falling asleep at the wheel while drink driving.
Merson was over the legal alcohol limit when he crashed his Mercedes into a lorry on the M40 near Warwick at 3.15am.
In the latest court cases, Merson was caught out three times by speed cameras on the Great Chertsey Road which runs from west London to the M3.
He was twice caught at 47mph in a 40mph stretch of the road in Feltham, on September 9 and September 11, and Merson was speeding at 57mph on a 50mph zone on October 1 in Sunbury.
Court papers obtained by The Standard show Merson accepted being the driver of the VW Touareg on each occasion.
He accidentally tore the corners off one of the official forms when he received a letter from the Metropolitan Police at his Teddington home. He sent back a handwritten note reading: “Dear Madam/Sir, I’m so sorry about the ripped form, it happened when I opened the letter. Sorry. Paul Merson.”
He was convicted in the Single Justice Procedure last month of the three London offences. At Willesden magistrates court, he was ordered to pay £220 for each offence, together with £300 costs and victim surcharges totaling £264.
However those sentences were reopened and overturned, so that Merson could be sentenced altogether with the fourth offence of speeding at 60mph on the M3 in Surrey.
Merson won the league, FA Cup and European Cup Winners Cup during a 12-year career at Arsenal, and went on to represent Middlesbrough, Aston Villa, Portsmouth, and Walsall. He also collected 21 caps for England, and appeared at the 1998 World Cup finals.
A representative for Merson has been contacted for comment.
