Lynda La Plante fears writing career over as she is handed six-month driving ban

By Tristan Kirk, Press Association Courts Editor

Bestselling author Lynda La Plante has been disqualified from driving for six months despite tearfully telling the court a ban would end her writing career.

The 83-year-old author and screenwriter told Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court she needs her car to meet criminals and sources for research into her next works of fiction.

And La Plante said a ban would stop her driving to take her beloved guard dog Theo for a walk in Roehampton playing fields, leading her to stopping writing altogether.

She told the court she believes she would have to have the dog rehomed if she was unable to drive him to his daily walks, saying: “I think the emotional turmoil of that would truly damn my career as a writer.

“It’s very, very solitary, and I work exceptionally hard, and I would just stop.”

La Plante pleaded guilty on Monday to breaking the 20mph speed limit near her home in Kingston-upon-Thames five times between November 2025 and April this year.

The court heard she already has nine points on her licence, from three speeding offences in June 2023, and June and July 2025.

La Plante, who is best-known for creating Prime Suspect’s no-nonsense detective DCI Jane Tennison, admitted driving at 24mph twice, 25mph, 26mph, and 27mph in the latest offences, which all happened as she took her 18-month-old dog for his daily walk.

Her lawyer Nick Freeman, who is known as Mr Loophole and has represented a string of celebrity clients, urged magistrates to spare her a ban, saying driving is a “vital part of who she is”.

La Plante bluntly told the court she would wind up her writing company if banned, putting four staff members out of work.

But magistrate Mandy Lamplough told the writer she had not done enough to prove that disqualification would cause her “exceptional hardship”.

The magistrates imposed fines totalling £3,330 on La Plante, handed her a six-month ban as her points total rose to 24, and ordered her to pay £130 costs and a £1,332 victim surcharge.

Giving evidence, La Plante said she got her dog Theo after suffering the devastation of the untimely death of another dog, Hugo, who was “in the prime of his life”.

“I don’t want it to sound trivial – this woman and her dog – but I can’t tell you what it was like with this enormous beautiful wolfhound. I don’t know how he did it.

“He would come up into my office, it was as if he said ‘stop’. He knew I had been working for five solid hours, and this paw would come up – bang.”

Fighting back tears, she said she “lost it” when Hugo died and she “didn’t know what to do with my life”.

And she said her new dog has helped her through the grieving process.

“I love him, it’s as simple as that, but at the same time he has become a great comfort to me,” she said.

La Plante said she drives Theo to be trained on the walk from Roehampton to Wimbledon, and she does not believe nearby Richmond Park is suitable as it is “alive with joggers”, as well as deer, and she is trying to train him not to chase people.

Turning to her writing career, La Plante said she has four books in the works, including one on the Government’s controversial early prison release scheme, and she argued she needed to drive to conduct research interviews.

“If I get a contact who will agree to talk to me, I go to them for research,” she said, setting out how she meets people including criminals in motorway cafes, homeless shelters, prisons, and theatres.

“It’s very difficult when you are meeting forms of criminality, they do like to be very choosy of the location.”

She added that she could not contemplate having a driver, as she would be distracted by questions while trying to recount information on the journey home from her research interviews.

Ahead of her court hearing, La Plante complained about “very confusing” road signs on the A308 in Kingston-upon-Thames, and Mr Freeman suggested she had inadvertently broke the speed limit while concentrating on driving safely.

La Plante, who created hit robbery TV series Widows in the 1980s and brought Prime Suspect to the screen in 1991, was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to literature, drama and charity.

She was first caught speeding at 9.24am on November 2 last year, when her Toyota was clocked at 24mph on the A308 Kingston Hill.

The second incident happened at 9.35am on March 5, a short distance along the same road, when the author’s car was clocked at 26mph.

In the third offence, she was caught breaking the 20mph limit on April 6 at a speed of 24mph.

She then faced a fourth criminal prosecution, over a speeding offence at 10.03am on April 11 after travelling at 27mph past the same speed camera as the second offence.

The fifth and final offence happened on April 19, when she was driving at 27mph.