SIR Idris Elba has been slapped with a £147 fine after he was caught speeding at 28mph on a moped.
The Luther and The Wire star, 53, was convicted of breaking a 20mph speed limit along Chelsea Embankment, in London, on June 21 last year.
He admitted the offence but claimed he hadn’t been given a fixed penalty notice by the Met Police – so he was unable to deal with the matter outside of court.
Elba enlisted the help of specialist lawyers and was fined £147 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday last week.
He was also handed three points for his licence and will have to pay an extra £110 in costs and £59 victim surcharge.
CCTV from the scene was played in court and showed the star riding his electric BMW scooter along the embankment.
It was recorded just days after it was announced that the actor is collaborating with the King for a Netflix film about 50 years of Charles’s charity The King’s Trust.
Idris was also awarded a knighthood in December last year for his charity work.
A statement from the Met Police read: “An automated eligibility check was completed on the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme database (NDORS).
“The driver/rider, Mr Idris Elba, was ineligible for a diversionary course.
“The police staff member said the film star was offered a fixed penalty to deal with the matter, but he did not pay it or provide details of his driving licence.”
The actor’s lawers, from Patterson Law, argued: “Mr Elba initially responded to the Notice of Intended Prosecution to nominate himself as the driver and was expecting to receive a fixed penalty offer.
“However, the offer never arrived and he therefore never had the opportunity to accept it.
“Had he received it, he absolutely would have accepted it.”The law firm said the actor had a clean driving licence and was pleading guilty to the offence, sparing the expense of a trial.
“We would ask the court to consider replicating the fixed penalty by imposing no more than a £100 fine, with no award for costs.
“He never received the fixed penalty – and this was through no fault of his own.
“It would therefore not be in the interests of justice to impose further financial penalties for something which was not his fault.”
Sir Idris was not required to attend court for the case to be sentenced.
