TV chef Paul Hollywood is clearly two people. The first is the genial judge on the Great British Bake Off. The second is a nasty bully when he gets behind the wheel of a car.
And so a magistrate was told by a police officer that Hollywood, 60, was doing 88mph round the M25 and yet was only two metres behind the car in front, which he was clearly trying to nudge out of the way.
The stopping distance for a car doing that speed is actually 173 metres, i.e., any mistake by the car in front would have led to the most enormous crash.
Instead of just being done for speeding (the fines were inconsequential as he’s worth £10million), he should also have been done for careless driving, but for some inexplicable reason that allegation was withdrawn.
I would have loved to have heard Hollywood give a reason for driving up the rear end of other motorists in the outside lane. There is only one answer: he’s a "bully".
These are the words of PC Alexander McAlpine, who followed Hollywood in his Land Rover Defender ( it weighs anywhere between 2,150-2,650 kilos) in his unmarked police car.‘’
Whenever there was a vehicle ahead, Hollywood would close up to a distance of less than five metres, which was wholly inappropriate for the conditions and speed.
He said: ‘’Once a vehicle moved out of the way, having been tailgated until they did so, the driver would then heavily accelerate and then travel well in excess of the limit until he reached the next vehicle.‘’
Hollywood would repeat the process, to try and ‘push’ any traffic that was in front of them out of the lane.’’He was doing this while driving at speeds of up to 105mph.
I hate these tailgaters. I’m not a slow driver; in fact, I picked up a fine a couple of months ago for doing 80mph, also on the M25.
It’s straightforward nastiness. He claimed to the court that he wanted to get home as his cat was sick and he wanted to take him to the vet. I clearly don’t know, but I don’t imagine this was the first time he had driven like this.
A few years back, he confessed on television that Mary Berry, at the time a fellow Bake Off judge, had admonished him for driving too quickly.
He said: ‘’It scares a few people. I took Mary in a car once and she was hitting me with her handbag.’’
Paul Hollywood is clearly two people - and one is a lot nastier than the other | Getty Images
In the end, Hollywood at the case in front of Worthing magistrates, he was handed five penalty points, a £293 fine, £120 in costs and a £117 victim surcharge.
Think he was damned lucky on the points. He didn’t attend in person but did have a lawyer speak for him. I suspect that the lawyer cost him twice what he paid in fines.
TV types spend much time, through PRs and the like, making sure their image remains genial and friendly, as there is more money to be made from the old saying, "you get more from sugar than you do from vinegar".
Driving a car weighing 2.5 tonnes at up to 105mph just metres away from the driver in front is beyond stupid. A slight mistake and we are in the realms of death by dangerous driving.
I imagine that, as a TV star, Hollywood is used to having a clear lane when he wants something. The fact is, everyone wants to get home early for one reason or another.
His actions were totally unacceptable, and the magistrate should have been a lot tougher on him, on behalf of all the other innocent motorists out there who are obeying the rules. Instead of Bake Off, I think we should tell Hollywood to Piss Off.