Crime writer Lynda La Plante, best known for creating the TV drama Prime Suspect, has been banned from driving for six months after accumulating 24 penalty points for speeding through 20mph zones. The 83-year-old had long spoken of her passion for cars, once describing motoring as her lifelong "guilty pleasure", making the ban a striking turn for someone who owned a Jaguar, a Range Rover, a Rolls-Royce and a beloved Smart car she boasted of "bombing around" in.

The Daily Mail also revealed that the ban comes more than 80 years after La Plante's family suffered a road tragedy of their own, when her sister Dail was killed by an articulated lorry shortly before Christmas in 1942. The report highlights the contrast between the author's decades-long enthusiasm for driving and the circumstances that have now ended, at least temporarily, her time behind the wheel.