Guy Ritchie has been banned from driving for six months.
Guy Ritchie
The 51-year-old director was caught texting behind the wheel of his Range Rover by biker Mike van Erp in Hyde Park, who filmed the incident on his GoPro helmet camera and alerted the police.
Ritchie, who already had nine points on his licence, received six more after pleading guilty in Bromley Magistrates Court on Tuesday (21.07.20) and he was subsequently banned for six months.
Mr Erp told MailOnline: "I am empathetic to him and other disqualified drivers. I have to look at myself to judge if I am doing the right thing. My dad was killed by a drink-driver when I was 19, I still remember him, so I feel very strongly about road safety.
"I first got my helmet camera in 2006 and saw the potential for road safety. When you have an incident people don't believe motorists can behave in the way they do.
"London is probably the camera cyclist capital of the world. Last year I think I caught 358 drivers and two cyclists, it only takes a few minutes to submit a video. You just fill out a form online and send it in. You do occasionally have to go to court, I have had to do it maybe five to 10 times.
"I think Mr Ritchie is the first well-known person I have caught doing it. I definitely think what I am doing is keeping the roads safe. The points system is designed to get people to driver better.
"I have had quite a lot of anonymous death threats through what I do. But I am just one of many camera cyclists. I think there are thousands of them in London. Some of them are even more active than me."
In a statement about the incident, which occurred in November last year, Mr Erp said: "I spotted this driver texting on his phone. I stopped and whilst waiting for traffic to clear could clearly see the driver typing on his phone. I then crossed to the driver's side where I saw his iPhone lit up with the classic blue and grey message bubbles of Apple iMessage, with text, and a message in process of being typed but not sent."
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