MP wins red light case

Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP, was yesterday cleared of driving through a red traffic light after staging her own reconstruction of the police case against her.

Mrs Clwyd positioned her car at a road junction in Cardiff and shot photos from the window to support her defence that two officers sitting in a panda car could not have had a clear view of her alleged offence.

The 60-year-old former shadow minister denied she was an "amber gambler" and told Cardiff magistrates' court that she was so convinced of her innocence she chose not to take the easy way out and pay the pounds 40 on-the-spot fixed penalty fine.

Mrs Clwyd, MP for Cynon Valley and a former shadow employment secretary, was stopped by the officers last February, only two minutes away from her home in St Michael's Road, Llandaff, Cardiff after driving from the House of Commons.

Mrs Clwyd said she would lodge an official complaint with South Wales police about publicity given to the prosecution before the case came to court.