One of the Two Fat Ladies of TV cookery fame, Clarissa Dickson Wright, yesterday apologised to a court for speeding and said she must have been too heavy on the accelerator.
The celebrity chef and TV personality had faced a warrant for her arrest last month after she failed to respond to a summons for contravening alleged motoring offences.
But yesterday at Forfar Sheriff Court, the self-confessed former alcoholic admitted a charge of speeding in her Saab on the Dundee to Aberdeen road near Forfar and told the sheriff: ''I trod too hard on the accelerator.''
Ms Dickson Wright, 53, a former barrister who made her name as one of the Two Fat Ladies with the late Jennifer Patterson, was also charged with having driven without a licence and without insurance.
She admitted the speeding charge, which happened on March 2 at Quilkoe on the A940 dual carriageway, when she drove at 95mph, 25mph over the limit. She denied the other charges.
In a letter to the court, Ms Dickson Wright said she had been driving since 1964 and added: ''I can only apologise. I do not normally speed but I had just transferred to the Saab after driving a heavy estate car for a fortnight.
''Having gone through the Forfar 50s (the speed limit on the dual carriageway was reduced after a number of accidents) I surmise I trod too hard on the accelerator.''
Sentence on the speeding charge was deferred until an intermediate date of October 12, and trial was set on the other charges for November 2 .
When she failed to respond to the charges last month, a warrant was issued for her arrest, but the warrant was later withdrawn.
Ms Dickson Wright, from Inveresk, Midlothian, is a confidante of Scotland's premier duke, the Duke of Hamilton, and is responsible for the catering at the duke's Lennoxlove home at Musselburgh.
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