Short-haired driver mistaken for a man is accused again of lying to police

Taylor Wright, 20, broke the speed limit driving on the A41 through Shropshire last month.

But when she replied to the speeding ticket, she was accused by West Mercia's speed department of lying about being the driver because “the photo clearly shows it is a man”.

Taylor - who has short hair - and her family, from Shifnal, thought the police mistake had been ironed out when they received an apology.

But she was amazed when she received another letter last week re-iterating that police believed she was lying about being the driver.

The Road Safety Team has apologised again saying administrative error had meant a duplicate letter had been sent out.

Devastated

Taylor's mother, Jenny Jones, said the second letter had devastated her daughter who had been worried that she could now been fined £1,000.

"It is madness. We can see why people lose their faith in the police. We have always believed that the police are here to help us," she said.

Taylor, who has short hair, said she had become used to people thinking that she was male and had had to learn to deal with comments about her gender.

But she said that to be accused of lying by the police was unacceptable and said the photo on her driving licence was identical to the one captured by the speed camera.

"I committed a speeding offence, I admit that. But when you fill in a legal document and are accused of lying about your gender it is wrong,” she said.

A spokesman for the Safer Roads Partnership said: "We’re aware of the concerns that have been raised and unfortunately of an additional administrative error regarding sending out a duplicate letter.

"This is down to human error and embedding the change of our processes. We have apologised again to those involved and we have implemented additional checks on top of those already implemented to help prevent this from happening again."