Lynda La Plante was disqualified from driving for six months after pleading guilty at Lavender Hill Magistrates' Court to five speeding offences near her home in Kingston-upon-Thames. Mandy Lamplough also ordered her to pay a £3,330 fine, £130 costs and a £1,332 victim surcharge.
Lavender Hill Magistrates' Court
The 83-year-old appeared in court on Monday over offences that took place between November 2025 and April this year. She admitted driving at 24mph twice, 25mph, 26mph and 27mph in a 20mph limit area, taking her licence total to 24 points.
Kingston-upon-Thames and the A308
Before the hearing, La Plante said the car was part of her work because she used it to meet criminals and sources for research into her fiction. She also said the latest trips were on the way to take Theo, her guard dog, for a daily walk in Roehampton Playing Fields, and that the same route had drawn her complaint about confusing road signs on the A308.
Mandy Lamplough
La Plante told the court, "I think the emotional turmoil of that would truly damn my career as a writer." She added, "It's very, very solitary and I work exceptionally hard and I would just stop." Lamplough said she had not done enough to prove that disqualification would cause exceptional hardship.
That ruling leaves La Plante facing six months without driving after three earlier speeding offences in June 2023, June 2025 and July 2025 had already put nine points on her licence. Her case turns on a simple line now: the court rejected the hardship claim, so the ban stands and the fines follow.
