A man who drives for a living and feared he might lose his licence at Truro Magistrates’ Court was given the benefit of the doubt and told that the way the mail was delivered where he lived needed some serious looking into.

Peter Pasturel, 59, of The Old Chapel, Three Burrows, Blackwater, pleaded not guilty to speeding on July 14 and not guilty to failing to provide information to the police on August 25.

Jill Wilson, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said Pasturel’s car had been caught in a speed trap at Temple, on Bodmin Moor, travelling at 74mph in a 60mph area.

Pasturel had been sent a communication advising him of this and also asking for information about the driver both of which he failed to reply to.

Pasturel said he had not received any notice.

Where he lived, in a house of flats, the post was left on the stairs. He had been away a lot of the time, and when the post was not collected it sometimes disappeared from where it had been left.

He did not know who took it. He said if he had known about the speeding offence he would have replied to it because he had to go to court for a similar matter in October and would have had both matters dealt with at the same time.

He said he not been driving the car himself, the driver was someone now living in South Africa whom he could not contact.

“I served for 20 years in the forces in a senior rank. I don’t make this up” he told the magistrates, adding that he drove for a living and previously had lost a lot of money when mail he should have received had never reached him.

The magistrates dismissed the case.