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The curious case of the JOGLE 9:36 bloke


Dave_Q

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I think there was a thread about this chap around the time. 
He claimed to have driven from John O'Groats to Lands End in 9 hours and 36 minutes in an Audi S5 in September 2017.

image.jpeg.de8580fd0289fabfccb4bc4ec7256288.jpeg

At the time the general response was a mixture of "OMG what about the nuns and kittens" and a decent proportion of doubt that it had actually happened. There was no GPS verification, just a couple of stills allegedly from a dashcam showing the start and finish time. The bloke had a long range fuel tank bodged in the boot and allegedly met up with some mates with 150l of fuel in a van outside Lancaster so wouldn't have been on CCTV at a services or owt.

Why I'm posting this is I randomly thought of this bloke the other week and wondered if they ever tried to prosecute him, and the answer is yes.

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/john-ogroats-lands-end-record-4756186

They searched his house and found:

  • A car maching the above picture complete with bodged in long range fuel tank
  • Rader jammers and police scanners
  • Fake Irish plates

According to the above article a car matching the description and fake plates was seen on ANPR, he also had a tracker and his phone was found to have made the journey in the stated time. 

He waited 6 months before doing his press run about this as he thought he couldn't be done for speeding after 6 months. It says he did get a FPN for speeding in Scotland which he did pay.

They tried to prosecute him for dangerous driving x 2 and perverting the course of justice x2.

His defence, in essence, was that he was a Billy Bullshitter and just made it all up. It really sounds to me like there is enough evidence about to prove that he did it. However, he was acquitted of all charges:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/04/man-cleared-of-dangerous-driving-over-record-breaking-uk-trip

So what do we reckon? Did he do it or not? Anyone happen to have any insight or know of the bloke?

I guess as it was a jury trial they have to convince a minimum of 10 or so jurors that he did do it, and there was enough doubt they couldn't secure a conviction.

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I think with the fuel tank and a pit crew it's quite possible. 

Back on the good old days of.... 

 

 

2011

 

I did my house the other side of Swansea to Aberdeen in 7.5hrs,only stopping at Carlisle for fuel and a piss, which I did at the same time. 

That was in a 1.2 16v corsa b at an indicated motorway average of about 85-90mph but with the obvious bottlenecks of Dundee and 50mph cameras etc to slow me down. Works out at 70mph average which is insane these days, I'd struggle to get 70mph average between two unrestricted sections of the M4 in Wales!!! 

Think it was about 530 miles? 

Just a great run of no roadworks, early hours of Sunday morning and good driving weather. 

I think it's feasible he could have done it but he'd have needed a lot to go his way. 

And he'd need to be doing an indicated 100/120 mph on the motorway sections easy. 

As the roads get tighter in Scottishland holding that 75/80mph average could be really hard. 

Not impossible but not easy. 

My vote is he did it. 

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I cannot compete with that.

My record was three and a half hours from Widnes to Southampton. That included a lunch stop at Corley services.

The weapon of choice was an astramax.

I had a 3 phase welder in the back that I needed to use on site. Due to the somewhat hectic nature of the drive when I went to use it it was fucked.

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Given that every year the LDU runs on the longest day, riding on £600 motorbikes, and avoiding motorways from LE-JOG starting at sunrise and most riders do it in 15-20 hours, I see no reason why someone well prepared couldn’t do it in sub-10hrs using motorways.

Similar I suppose to people doing the coast to coast runs across the US.

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1 hour ago, 83C said:

Given that every year the LDU runs on the longest day, riding on £600 motorbikes, and avoiding motorways from LE-JOG starting at sunrise and most riders do it in 15-20 hours...

Anyone else up for an 'AS in the Community' version next June?

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33 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

I remember the guy, or someone claiming to be him, posted on the existing JOGLE thread on Pistonheads:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1250205&i=200

User "CONVOIEXCEPTIONNEL" - his posts start near the bottom of p11 and he returned to the thread last year after the case. He sounds like a right fucking nugget too.

To be fair, he sounds fairly level headed compared to the usual plethora of utter throbbers on that site.

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1 hour ago, Nyphur said:

I remember the guy, or someone claiming to be him, posted on the existing JOGLE thread on Pistonheads:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1250205&i=200

User "CONVOIEXCEPTIONNEL" - his posts start near the bottom of p11 and he returned to the thread last year after the case. He sounds like a right fucking nugget too.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. 

I am also pretty convinced that he did it and I'm mostly surprised that he managed not to get convicted for it.
The story is too detailed and the car being sat in his garage with all the stuff still attached, the phone evidence etc is just too much for me.
The PH thread also mentions it was fitted with blues of some sort?
There must just have been enough doubt for the jury that he was in the driving seat but surely just owning some of the "countermeasures" is an offence in itself?

I guess the certainty of a custodial sentence if "new evidence" such as him further dobbing himself in emerges, means he has gone quiet.

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I think one of the PH comments nails it.  I agree that he probably did do it, but what gets me is that there is no way for anyone to hold the level of concentration required to drive at those speeds "safely" for the sustained length of time involved.  

 

Sounds well planned, nice idea in theory, great story made better by the evidence, findings in court and self representation.  But still fucking stupid.

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14 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

There must just have been enough doubt for the jury that he was in the driving seat?

Yeah, seemingly the fact that he had an identical car hidden in his garage fitted with a non-compliant extra fuel tank, radar jammers and fake police lights, plus a set of false Irish plates in his house, was not enough to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that it was definitely him driving, and not just a series of bizarre coincidences.

Quote

Davies said he did make the trip but he was not the driver and said the journey took 12 hours. He said he was a passenger in a similar-looking Audi being driven by Irish friends he met within the car enthusiast community.

Without a detailed ANPR pic clearly showing him behind the wheel for the CPS to present to the court, the circumstantial argument appears to have won out.

I still reckon he's a bell-end.

TL,DR:

"Some bigger Irish boys did it and then ran away, your honour."

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Well I suppose any time is better than the 44 days, 21 hours and 46 minutes it took me to do it in the Montego!

The 'legal' time is about 14.5 hours so I suppose if you didnt stop and sped once (all the way) there then you could do it in sub 10 hours but it would be hard work and your fuel consumption would surely compound the need to stop?

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4 minutes ago, Datsuncog said:

Yeah, seemingly the fact that he had an identical car hidden in his garage fitted with a non-compliant extra fuel tank, radar jammers and fake police lights, plus a set of false Irish plates in his house, was not enough to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that it was definitely him driving, and not just a series of bizarre coincidences.

Without a detailed ANPR pic clearly showing him behind the wheel for the CPS to present to the court, the circumstantial argument appears to have won out.

I still reckon he's a bell-end.

TL,DR:

"Some bigger Irish boys did it and then ran away, your honour."

Yeah he's deffo a bellend. 

As it was a crown court trial there will have been a jury and if it came to a majority verdict they would have needed 10 out of 12 jurors to agree he did it beyond reasonable doubt. 

So despite the fact the dafty left quite a lot of evidence, none of it incontrovertibly puts him in the drivers seat so I guess it's not beyond reasonable doubt?

2 minutes ago, Tommyboy12 said:

Well I suppose any time is better than the 44 days, 21 hours and 46 minutes it took me to do it in the Montego!

The 'legal' time is about 14.5 hours so I suppose if you didnt stop and sped once (all the way) there then you could do it in sub 10 hours but it would be hard work and your fuel consumption would surely compound the need to stop?

The guys story was that he had an additional 80l fuel tank and stopped once to take on ≈150l of fuel so therefore about 4 x "normal" full tanks.

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22 minutes ago, Dave_Q said:

There must just have been enough doubt for the jury that he was in the driving seat but surely just owning some of the "countermeasures" is an offence in itself?

Isn't the offence using them? Possessing the equipment isn't.

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3 minutes ago, loserone said:

The beauty of all that extra evidence (the car, tank, jammers etc.) is that it pretty much proves he did do it as far as the real world is concerned, it's just the lack of evidence it was him driving that got him off.

Maybe he was actually a criminal genius to leave just the right amount of evidence to have done it without actually getting convincted for it

2 minutes ago, 3VOM said:

Isn't the offence using them? Possessing the equipment isn't.

I don't know on that one, I had assumed possession but maybe they're not illegal in your garage.

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1 hour ago, loserone said:

The beauty of all that extra evidence (the car, tank, jammers etc.) is that it pretty much proves he did do it as far as the real world is concerned, it's just the lack of evidence it was him driving that got him off.

It proves he could have done it. Not that he did do it. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Glad I'm not the only one who was looking this up. Always been of fan of the Cannonball and the runs across the states. For what its worth he popped up on Instagram with Arne Toman who holds the US Record from NY - LA. He obviously keeps the sort of company that do this sort of stuff.

From my research looks as if they couldn't put him behind the wheel. The driver was in 'Doubt' not the time as the ANPR and GPS data all lined up to show 9:36. None of the speed cams went off so he must have messed with them somehow? (Any ideas?) . Bet the police were sick to the stomach with the verdict though.

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My maths isn't the best but my Ssangyong Rexton will do a quarter mile in just over twenty seconds. Which works out at about one minute twenty seconds a mile. 

It's 837 miles from JOG to LE. 

837 X 80 is 66,960. 

66,960 divided by 60 is 1,116. 

1,116 divided by 60 is 18.6

 

So I think flat out,  it would take me about 18.6 hours to complete that run. 

 

Are Audi's THAT much faster than Ssangyongs? 

I don't think so. I think he tied his phone to a train or helicopter to try and show off. 

Verdict: Audi's are not faster than Ssangyongs.  

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2 hours ago, Jim Bell said:

My maths isn't the best but my Ssangyong Rexton will do a quarter mile in just over twenty seconds.

That's from a standing start.   When driving absolutely flat out, your Rexton will do a mile every 31.3 seconds (just.  Max speed 115mph..)

In theory, this could have been done.  It's 837 milles average speed 87mph.  Assuming you got the timing *just* right and missed all the traffic on a motorway, you could easily hold 120mph on the quieter/straight sections, and 100mph average around the "junction-y" bits (around birmingham and Glasgow) which means you'll dispatch 500 miles of that off in less than 5h, maybe as little as 4h if you up the speed on the really quiet section of the M6 north of Lancaster..  The remaining 337 miles then only needs an average speed of 60-ish mph, which sounds entirely achievable.

After all, the most recent (IIRC) coast-to-coast over america managed an average speed of 99mph. 

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1 hour ago, Talbot said:

That's from a standing start.   When driving absolutely flat out, your Rexton will do a mile every 31.3 seconds (just.  Max speed 115mph..)

In theory, this could have been done.  It's 837 milles average speed 87mph.  Assuming you got the timing *just* right and missed all the traffic on a motorway, you could easily hold 120mph on the quieter/straight sections, and 100mph average around the "junction-y" bits (around birmingham and Glasgow) which means you'll dispatch 500 miles of that off in less than 5h, maybe as little as 4h if you up the speed on the really quiet section of the M6 north of Lancaster..  The remaining 337 miles then only needs an average speed of 60-ish mph, which sounds entirely achievable.

After all, the most recent (IIRC) coast-to-coast over america managed an average speed of 99mph. 

You can't argue with science. 

I'd offer to prove it beyond all doubt by fitting a 300 litre extra veg oil tank in the back of the Rexton and making the run in person, documented by a film crew and satalite triangulation but I can't because I've got a sore tummy. 

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3 hours ago, Talbot said:

That's from a standing start.   When driving absolutely flat out, your Rexton will do a mile every 31.3 seconds (just.  Max speed 115mph..)

In theory, this could have been done.  It's 837 milles average speed 87mph.  Assuming you got the timing *just* right and missed all the traffic on a motorway, you could easily hold 120mph on the quieter/straight sections, and 100mph average around the "junction-y" bits (around birmingham and Glasgow) which means you'll dispatch 500 miles of that off in less than 5h, maybe as little as 4h if you up the speed on the really quiet section of the M6 north of Lancaster..  The remaining 337 miles then only needs an average speed of 60-ish mph, which sounds entirely achievable.

After all, the most recent (IIRC) coast-to-coast over america managed an average speed of 99mph. 

I wonder how he dealt with the average speed cameras on the A9. I suppose even sticking to 60, then as fast as possible at every dual section might allow you to keep up that 60 average.  Unless there was some technical trickery at play to fool the cameras somehow?

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