A 32-year-old lorry driver and former drug addict has made an impassioned plea to save his licence.

Matthew Paull was caught using his mobile phone at the wheel of his articulated lorry on the A38 at Upton Warren.

Police officers stopped him and found he already had nine points on his licence.

“If I lose my licence I’ve lost my job,” he told city magistrates.

Admitting the offence of Friday, August 21, Paull, of Somerton Road, Somerset, was fined £170 given three points although he was allowed to keep his licence based on a plea of exceptional hardship.

He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge and warned by magistrates to stay out of trouble.