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The wife of a prominent member of the Royal Household sobbed in court after she narrowly missed losing her driving licence for using her phone behind the wheel.
Kim Todd, 59, was spotted picking up her mobile while sitting in traffic in a £60,000 Land Rover on Lower Richmond Road, south London, on February 25.
The psychotherapist, who lives in a grace-and-favour apartment at Kensington Palace, home to staff working for the Royal Household and the same complex where Princess Diana once lived, admitted using her phone while driving.
Prosecutor Matthew Spratt told Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court that the offence was seen while the vehicle was stationary in traffic but gave no further details. The car she was driving was not owned by the Royal Family.
Todd wept as she told the court she could not afford to lose her licence because her stepfather, who lives in rural Wiltshire, has stage-four cancer and she must be available day and night to support her mother.
She said she’d been stuck in traffic and had just picked the phone up after it beeped, adding: ‘I just wasn’t thinking.’
She already had six points on her driving licence and a further six for this offence would take her to the point of being disqualified, the court heard.
Kim Todd, pictured, was driving a nearly new £60,000 Land Rover when she was seen picking up her mobile while stuck in traffic
The psychotherapist lives in a grace and favour apartment at Kensington Palace, which houses admin staff for the royal household
However, she pleaded exceptional hardship, claiming the loss of her licence would see her mother stranded with no-one to help her with her sick husband.
She said: ‘I could kick myself because I was stuck in a traffic jam. My phone beeped and I looked at it. At that moment, I just wasn’t thinking.’
She said that her stepfather, who is battling cancer, lives in Wiltshire and her mother needed help taking him to and from hospital appointments.
‘The other night he fell out of bed and she couldn’t pick him up,’ she went on. I keep promising her that I’ll be there for her and if she needs me I can just drive down.
‘It was such a stupid thing to do with my phone.’
She said it wouldn’t affect her counselling work because living so centrally, she could always take public transport.
Chairman of the bench, Andrew Robinson, decided to endorse her licence with six further points, taking her total to 12 points, but didn’t disqualify her.
‘We are not going to disqualify you,’ he said.
‘We understand your parents are in a situation where they are relatively isolated.
‘They have no other support mechanism and it could be any time of the day or night that you are needed.’
But he warned her: ‘If you come before the court again for road traffic offences, we won’t be able to do this again.’
She was also fined £384, a surcharge of £154 and contributions to costs of £130.
Princess Diana and then Prince Charles lived at apartments 8 and 9 when their sons William and Harry were born in 1982 and 1984.
Diana loved it so much that she carried on living there after her divorce was granted in 1996. It was still her address when she died in a car crash in a Paris underpass in August 1997.
Todd, pictured, pleaded exceptional hardship, claiming the loss of her licence would see her mother stranded with no-one to help her with her sick husband
Many official portraits – especially of the young princes – showed Diana decorated it to her own taste using designer Dudley Poplak.
The top floors held the boys’ nursery, with pictures showing the brothers riding rocking horses on a carpet emblazoned with strawberries.
After Diana’s death, the apartments stood empty until they were used as offices by then Prince Charles, including as studio space for his Royal Drawing School.
They later became office space for William and Harry’s charity work and royal duties while a separate area was given to staff members as accommodation.
Opposite apartments 8 and 9 is Nottingham Cottage, where William and Catherine lived from 2011 to 2013 after their marriage, before Prince Harry moved in with Meghan Markle.
It was in Nottingham Cottage that he proposed to her before they moved to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
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