A fashion model has escaped a driving ban by claiming she swapped seats with her partner when he became ill at the wheel.
Serena Stregapede, 37 had faced disqualification when police discovered she was uninsured to drive the £80,000 Taycan Sport Turismo when she pulled over on the M56 near Stretton, Cheshire.
But she said she had only taken over the wheel of the 155mph vehicle when her partner, former Olympic boxer and Commonwealth Games gold medalist Anthony Fowler, 33, suddenly felt unwell and stopped on the hard shoulder as he was driving the couple to a business conference in Birmingham.
The mother of three said neither of them were aware she was not insured to drive the Porsche and insisted she was planning to pull over at the next motorway service station at the time she was stopped.
At Chester magistrates court, Stregapede, from Aigburth, Liverpool who already had six points on her licence for using a mobile phone at the wheel of her own car was found guilty of having no insurance and she had her driving licence endorsed with a further six penalty points.
But Stregapede, a former beauty queen who also works as a social media manager for Mr Fowler’s health and wellbeing company, was spared a driving ban after explaining she needed to take her children to multiple hospital appointments.
Her two year old daughter has bone cancer and requires regular visits to Alder Hey Children Hospital plus treatment in Harrogate and London. Her three year old son, who is autistic, also requires regular trips to hospital.
The incident occurred on March 16 when a police patrol carrying out routine checks on passing cars noticed her driving 2023 Taycan and noted she was not listed on the insurance schedule.
Miss Olivia Randell, prosecuting said: ‘She was not able to provide any further details as to why she was not insured and the officer reported her for driving without insurance. A driving licence check showed she already had six points.’
But defence solicitor Gary Lawrenson who said: ‘It was an oversight on her part, a genuine mistake. She was in her partner’s vehicle and they were travelling to a conference in Birmingham. Her partner was an amateur boxer who fought in the Olympics a number of years ago and he had decided his condition was not as good as it was when he was a boxer.
‘He had been fasting and they had taken off first thing in the morning. But on the motorway he said, ‘I don’t feel right. I do not feel well’. They pulled over and she took over the driving. Frankly she was frightened. I do not know if you have ever pulled over on the hard shoulder, it is a frightening experience. She drove with the intention of driving to the next services.
‘She was under the impression that she was insured. It was a case of each thought that the other had sorted out the insurance when neither had. She was not driving willy nilly without the right documentation.
‘It was just an extraordinary set of circumstances that led to her driving for that short length of time. You either have insurance or you do not, and unfortunately she did not.
Mr Lawrenson added: ‘She would suffer exceptional hardship if she was to be disqualified. She and her partner have been together for about five years.. They have two children together Roma and Luca and aged two and three and she has another daughter aged 11 from a previous relationship.
‘He runs a business and spends most of the week working in London whilst she finds herself Monday to Friday on her own with the two children. In ordinary circumstances that would seem a handful but have their own particular issues.’
Stregapede herself told the hearing: ‘Roma was diagnosed with childhood cancer about six months ago and has to attend a lot of hospital appointments.We have to go to Alder Hey twice a week and we also take her for holistic therapies. I drive to Harrogate once per week, a two and half hour drive, for treatment. She also goes to London once per fortnight to see an osteopath.
‘She has a tumour in her femur and it is growing inside her bone. If it grows too big it could crack the bone. If that happens she is going to need major surgery. She has just turned two and we have got to be really careful with her.
‘Luca is autistic and does not speak at all. He does not like being around people. He does not like noise. I cannot take him to public areas where there is lots of noise. If he had to go on public transport that would be a nightmare. He is really strong, really boisterous and really hard work.
‘Roma really loves him but I have got to keep them separated as she is really frail. Another is I am going to have three children in three different schools, all very far away from each other. I drop my eldest daughter Lucia off at 8am. She is dropped off early so I can get the other two children to nursery bur Roma will have to go a special school as the nursery staff cannot look after him properly.’
Stregapade said she had no family who can help look after the children for her and claimed she would lose her job if she lost her licence.
‘I do all the social media and interview celebrities and travel across the country and have to drive because of my job.’ she said, ‘I go to London a lot, plus Leeds and Manchester.
‘I am the face of the company and whilst there are a lot of other faces there I am the one who interviews. I have to be sat next to them and we get photos. If I could not go to these places, I would more than likely lose my job.
‘I am literally permanently in the car and I literally live in the car. If you see my car you will probably laugh because it’s got everything in it. I literally live in the car. Every day is difficult because we have so much going on in life. Because my partner is away I literally do everything.
‘It is literally just chaos every day. It is never a calm day. Never like a smooth day.’
Stregapade was fined £724, and ordered to pay £910 in costs and a victim surcharge. JP Charles Platt said: ‘Exceptional hardship is an extremely high bar to achieve but one of the reasons that we are able to consider is whether family members are going to be sufficiently impacted by a ban on the driver in question.
‘We do find that the issues you have with your children in your daily life do constitute exceptionally difficult circumstances and therefore we are on this occasion prepared to give you exceptional hardship for that reason. For that reason you will be allowed to continue to drive.
‘But I need to remind you that if you were to get further points and come back to court again you would not be able to use the same excuse. You have to drive on eggshells. You need that firmly in your mind. You will be in a sticky situation if you get more points.’
Mr Fowler won bronze at 2015 World Championships and gold in the middleweight at the 2014 Commonwealth Games after winning the English Championship earlier in the year. He also represented Team GB at the 2016 Olympics but lost his opening fight.
He is also the director of Supreme CBD which specialises in cannabidiol (CBD) oil which he set up in 2019. CBD is a non-psychoactive ingredient found in cannabis but extracted from hemp and can be used for medicinal purposes.