A SPEEDER left his special constable mum high and dry by letting her take the rap for lying to police about his whereabouts while he walked free.

Former Wiltshire Police special inspector Karen Ravenscroft was yesterday jailed for five months for perverting the course of justice.

The Royal Wootton Bassett care home manager had written a letter to Hampshire police after her son Andrew was caught speeding in Southampton in February 2017.

She claimed her 36-year-old son had a business meeting at her care home on the same day as the speeding offence and falsified a visitors’ book to back-up the lie.

Sentencing her, Judge Jason Taylor QC said: “It’s quite clear in my mind he should have been prosecuted and I have not been provided with a satisfactory explanation as to why he wasn’t.”

The judge, who had been urged to suspend any prison sentence, said he wished he did not have to send Ravenscroft straight to custody.

But he told her: “The message must be crystal clear – you cannot seek to pervert the course of justice.”

Prosecuting, Caighli Taylor said Ravenscroft’s daughter had received a notification her car had been clocked speeding in Southampton on February 22, 2017.

She told the authorities her brother had been driving the car. When the brother, Andrew, tried to say it was his sister behind the wheel she and her partner provided receipts proving they were in Bath that day.

Andrew Ravenscroft spoke to his mum, who wrote a letter to Hampshire Constabulary telling officers he had visited her care home for a business meeting.

But when a police officer visited her in April 2017 she broke down and admitted she hadn’t checked her diary to check he had been with her.

She hadn’t asked any questions of him.

Ms Taylor said: “She explained she was a special constable and she offered to resign there and then.”

When police then got in touch with Ravenscroft he claimed to have got his dates confused and now realised he must have been the driver.

He has since been prosecuted for speeding but not perverting the course of justice.

Karen Ravenscroft, 61, of Short Street, Melksham, admitted perverting the course of justice on the day her trial was due to start in July.

Derek Perry, defending, said it was offensive to common sense and justice for Ravenscroft to be imprisoned while her son walked free: “Although she bares significant culpability, the person behind all this has escaped culpability.”