62-YEAR-OLD Simon Chaplin from Hebron, the speeding driver who deployed a James Bond-esque smoke screen device to shake off police, appeared before Swansea Crown Court.
The defendant was convicted of causing danger to other road users by deliberating causing smoke to be omitted, driving without insurance and threatening behaviour.
When police attempted to pull Chaplin over for speeding, he deployed a device to produce colossal amounts of grey smoke from his exhaust.
The court heard that the defendant had rigged a bucket of diesel, pipes and a pump behind the passenger seat of his car to produce the smoke.
Although the officer pursuing Chaplin was not able to see his car, he was able to follow the fumes the vehicle left behind and he caught up with the defendant five miles up the road at a farmyard.
An eye-witness said that he thought that the defendant’s engine had blown because the smoke was covering both carriageways. He said that he had to slow to five miles an hour due to the smoke.
Chaplin said that he “sort of panicked” when he saw the officer activate his blue flashing light. He told the court that he had borrowed the smoke device, which was used to kill moles, from a neighbour.
Defending him, John Hipkin said that Chaplin was not an unpleasant individual and that he had “eccentricities.”
The judge said: “You caused smoke to be emitted on a village road in such circumstances that any reasonable person would know it was dangerous. During pursuit, you activated a contraption which was dangerous and caused smoke to be emitted from the exhaust.”
He added that it was a very “unusual” circumstance in which Chaplin found himself before the court and stated that he did not want to see the defendant there again.
Chaplin was sentenced to a community order, he will have to complete 100 hours of unpaid work, and six points were added to his licence.
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