Very long arm of the law: Driver stopped twice by same PC... 12,000 miles apart



It was a case of parallel lives when policeman Andy Flitton booked a speeding driver in New Zealand.

Two years earlier, Constable Flitton had stopped the same motorist – 12,000 miles away in England.

The two men had both emigrated and their paths had crossed once again.

Breaking the limit: A policeman monitoring drivers speeds in the UK

Constable Flitton said that as he wrote out the ticket on a road near Christchurch, the driver asked if he had worked in London and then if he had operated a laser gun on the A5.

'I thought it was you,’ said the man, who has not been named. ‘You gave me my last speeding ticket there two years ago.'

Constable Flitton said he could only laugh when the man he had booked recognised him as the officer who had ticketed him in Britain two years earlier.



The driver, who produced British and South African licences, told Constable Flitton that he had just emigrated from England, where he had lived for 12 years.

It was while he was writing out the speeding ticket in his car that Constable Flitton saw the driver, who has not been identified, approaching him with a smile.

Constable Flitton had been an officer with the Metropolitan Police for 26 years before emigrating to the south island of New Zealand.

'At first, I hadn't recognised him, but the minute he said it I remembered the whole thing. We both just had a laugh,' the police officer told the New Zealand Herald.

The driver told the policeman that he had been in New Zealand for less than two weeks and was still looking for somewhere to live.

The policeman and the motorist discussed the odds of meeting each other again the same way.

'We must have some sort of connection,' said Constable Flitton.

'He only ever broke the law twice and both times I was the one to give him a ticket.

'It cost him £60 over there and $120 (£58) over here, so it wasn't cheap.

'It just shows what a small world it really is.'

