Jon was a petrol head; he made a good living as a car mechanic and he bought a succession of expensive cars, all of which he made sure that he insured fully comprehensively to keep them safe. He was usually a sensible driver but when you have a fast car and a long, twisty road ahead of you sometimes the temptation to put your foot down is irresistible. Result? He got caught speeding twice and received six penalty points on his licence. His car insurance premiums rocketed. However things could get much worse.
Jon met a young lady called Penny. She was attractive, vivacious, and shared his love of fast cars. Her own car however was an old Ford Fiesta which didn't really stack up against Jon's BMW 8 Series! Some of us wondered if that was what she found attractive about Jon in the first place.
18 months ago Jon's life was turned upside down.
Penny's car was in for service and she asked Jon if she could borrow his BMW for the day since she was having to take her mother to the hospital for a checkup. Jon had arranged to go out with some friends that evening for a few beers so he didn't dare drive and was quite happy to let her take his pride and joy. He asked if she was insured and she assured him that she was.
What he didn't know was that she had lied to him. She was an ambitious girl and she wanted more out of life than being married to a car mechanic, no matter how honest and caring he was. She had set her sights on a junior barrister called Roland, who had invited her out for a date, and she wanted to impress him. She thought that turning up in Jon's BMW would be a good start!
Penny's date was perhaps a little more successful than she expected and after dinner Roland invited her back to his house; a large imposing terraced houses in Maidenhead. He didn't have a driveway but all the local residents parked their cars on the road outside.
Penny and Roland were just getting down to some serious courtship when there was a horrible crash outside the window; Roland investigated and was just in time to see a rather battered car hurtling off down the road. He came out to make sure that everything was okay with the BMW; it was obvious that the other car had hit it broadside on and it was pretty badly wrecked! Instantly he got on his telephone and rang the police.
By this time Penny was getting a little agitated. She hadn't told Roland about Jon, and now Jon's car was badly damaged and the police were on the way! That wasn't the worst part of it. The young police officer who arrived asked if the car was insured fully comprehensively, and she had to admit that it didn't belong to her but to a friend. The officer asked if he could see her insurance details; she didn't have them with her but she promised to bring them down to the police station the following morning.
Roland drove her home but was in a foul mood; he'd had a traumatic night and frankly didn't trust Penny any more because so many things that she had told him simply didn't add up. She checked her insurance certificate, and, yes, she was insured for her own Fiesta; but the policy didn't cover vehicles that didn't belong to her! Result, Jon's car was picked up by the police a couple of hours later and taken off to a pound.
Jon was, by the following morning, anxious to get his car back so he got a friend to give him a lift round to Penny's house where the full story came out. He had to go round to the pound, pay the impound fees, arrange for a specialist vehicle remover to pick his car up, and pay nearly four thousand pounds to get it repaired. His romance with Penny was destroyed.
That wasn't the end of his problems. He was charged with allowing an uninsured person to drive his car. He went to court and pleaded that he genuinely believed that Penny had been insured but the magistrates told him that that was not a valid defence. He was fined £500 plus costs, and six more points went onto his driving licence. That made 12 points in all and he was disqualified from driving for 12 months.
A year later, and thanks to his recent disqualification he was initially refused car insurance when he went to take out a new policy! Jon now doesn't believe that he can never trust a woman again.