A mother on the school run who used her £80,000 Range Rover to ‘nudge’ an Insulate Britain zealot blocking the M25 today declared she should never have been taken to court after being fined just £40 despite being threatened with prison.
Sherrilyn Speid, 35, of Grays, Essex, blasted the police and revealed the public stop her to thank her and also ask for selfies after she was handed a community punishment and a driving ban at Basildon Magistrates’ Court this morning.
The mother-of-two became an unlikely hero after she was filmed losing her temper at the hardline tactics of the eco warriors who had spent weeks blocking roads, including the M25.
Speid, who originally faced a charge of assault before it was dropped at an earlier hearing, could have been jailed for her actions but walked free from court today. Instead she was banned from driving for a year, fined £40, along with a £95 victim surcharge.
Prosecutors asked for £310 costs but magistrates requested Speid pay a reduced amount of £105. She will also have to carry out 20 days of community punishment in the next year.
Speid declared today she should not have even been prosecuted and revealed she is often stopped by people in the street who praise her for her actions near to the M25 last October.
She said: ‘I shouldn’t have been here today, sorry but I’m just a working mum who was trying to get my boy to school that morning. It was a nudge – just to get them to move. There are a lot of examples of far worse driving where people don’t get treated like this’.
Accusing the police of trying to make an example of her because of her unlikely fame, she added: ‘I think it’s double standards. We all called the police and they did not come.’
