POLICE who pulled over a roofing company boss for using his mobile phone at the wheel of a Ford Transit van, soon discovered he had been banned from driving the day before, an Isle of Wight court was told.

Luke Robert Harding, of Locksley Drive, Ferndown, Bournemouth, admitted driving whilst disqualified and using a mobile phone while driving, in Wootton, on October 25.

But the 55-year-old businessman will face a Newton hearing, to determine if his claim he was unaware he had been disqualified by Basingstoke Magistrates' Court under the penalty points totting up procedure on October 24, is legitimate.

Magistrates agreed to the hearing after his solicitor, Barry Arnett, argued his client, although aware of the hearing, had not attended and was not informed of the decision to disqualify him. 

Harding was pulled over by the police on Wootton High Street at 11.45am after they saw him reading the screen of his mobile phone, said Liz Miller, prosecuting, at the Isle of Wight Magistrates' Court on Friday (8).

Although the dad-of-two admitted he had been using the phone, he flatly denied being disqualified from driving.

The disqualification is for six months.

Magistrates ordered a report on Harding and bailed him to reappear for a Newton hearing, at the same venue, on March 14 next year.