Bianca Williams banned from driving and given 18 penalty points

British sprinter Bianca Williams has been banned from driving despite telling a court it would jeopardise her chances of going to the 2024 Olympics.

Williams, 29, failed to tell police who was driving a Tesla Model 3 when an alleged offence took place.

The athlete claimed a ban would make it difficult for her to get to training.

But magistrates at Lavender Hill rejected her claim that she could not use public transport and suspended her from driving for six months.

Williams failed on three occasions to reply to letters from the police between April and June 2023.

In October, two Metropolitan Police officers were sacked over a stop and search of Williams and her partner, the Portuguese sprinter Ricardo Dos Santos, 28, in 2020.

The couple are black and claimed they were racially profiled.

A police misconduct hearing was told officers followed Mr Dos Santos in their police carrier because of the "appalling" and "suspicious" nature of his driving and were doing their duty when they conducted the stop and search.

But the panel found two officers had lied about smelling cannabis.

Having pleaded guilty to three charges of failing to tell police the identity of a driver, Williams told the court she was not driving the Tesla at the time of the alleged offences.

Representing herself, Williams said she was currently working as a tennis coach in the evenings and as a full-time athlete during the day.

The sprinter, who lives in the Maida Vale area of west London with her partner, said it was "massively inconvenient" to get to the central London athletics track where she trains using public transport and "really hard" to get to her tennis coaching sessions in north London without a car.

She told the court she drops off her three-year-old child at nursery before training every morning, and said losing her licence would "make my dream of going to the Olympics next year impossible".

"I understand this is totally my fault, I shouldn't have relied on somebody else to fill out the form," she said.

"It's hard to get from nursery to training. My income would drop because I wouldn't be able to do any coaching sessions.

"It would be horrible to lose my licence. I would potentially have no work and no income."

Williams was disqualified from driving for six months and ordered to pay a fine of £276, a surcharge of £110 and £85 costs. Another 18 points were added to her licence, bringing her total to 29.

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