D’Souza faces ban after raising 20mph speeding tickets with Met commissioner

Former Lord speaker Baroness D’Souza faces an eight-week suspension, after she raised her repeated speeding tickets with Sir Mark Rowley.

Lady D’Souza used House of Lords headed paper to query the offences with the Metropolitan Police chief, fearing she might have to “relinquish” her licence for driving between 21 and 27 miles per hour in 20mph areas.

Commissioner for standards Martin Jelley found the crossbench peer had “sought to influence a live police investigation”, and the House’s conduct committee agreed with his findings, when she sought to appeal against his proposal to suspend her.

According to the panel’s report, Lady D’Souza “at no stage disputed the facts of the case”, and she noted that her letter to Sir Mark was “inappropriate”.

But the committee found that the baroness, “by writing to Sir Mark, sought to benefit herself”.

The report read: “She could have followed due process, attending court and explaining to the magistrate how a lengthy ban would impede her parliamentary work.

“Instead, she sought to bypass this by writing, as a member of the House, directly to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.”

The panel agreed with Mr Jelley’s finding that “a case such as this ‘may harm the House by eroding public trust in parliamentarians and in institutions which exist to serve the public interest'”.

Lady D’Souza wrote to Sir Mark on February 23 this year.

“I do realise that you have much other business to deal with and I apologise for bothering your office with such a trivial matter,” she said.

“That said, I fear I may have to relinquish my licence due to recent speeding offences of between 21 and 27 miles in a 20-mile restricted area.

“I have, or will have, paid £400 and will end up with 12 points on my driving licence.

“If this means losing my right to drive, I will have to give up attending Parliament, since I live deep in the countryside with no local bus services and unsuitable train schedules.”

The 81-year-old peer, who took up her seat on the red benches in 2004, asked Sir Mark’s office whether that would be “a fair response for exceeding the speed limit while we are all still learning what a 20-mile speed actually feels like”.

She added: “Finally, who can say if my speedometer or your radar is entirely accurate in recording 21 miles instead of 20?”

In her defence, Lady D’Souza told the committee “she had been advised by a colleague in the House, a former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to write to the relevant chief of the police force”, and was acquainted with Sir Mark through the Westminster Abbey Institute.

The committee also heard that “the recommended eight-week suspension from the House was ‘unduly severe’, given the nature of the offence and her previous unblemished service as a member of the House”, according to its report.

Lady D’Souza was Lord speaker between 2011 and 2016.