Top Gear star Richard Hammond slapped with £999 fine after being clocked speeding in Bentley & Porsche

TOP Gear star Richard Hammond has been slapped with a £999 fine after he was clocked speeding twice. The TV presenter, 56, was caught behind the wheel of a Porsche in December last year and then caught again driving a Bentley just 20 days later. Just 20 days after he was first caught, the former Top Gear presenter was caught speeding again Credit: PA Hammond was caught doing 68mph in a 50mph zone in his Porsche Credit: PA West Mercia Police have brought two prosecutions against Hammond with speed camera images of him driving the swanky motors in Herefordshire as evidence. A police officer operating a handheld speeding camera caught the TV personality speeding just before 1pm on December 2 last year. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! His Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo was clocked at 68mph in a 50mph limit on the A40 in Pencraig, Herefordshire. At around 11.45am on December 22, Hammond’s Bentley Continental GT was speeding at 82mph in a 70mph limit on the A50 Rudhall Overbridge in Herefordshire. Hammond famously nearly lost his life in a car crash while filming Top Gear Credit: PA Hammond, who worked alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May on Top Gear and The Grand Tour pleaded guilty Credit: HANDOUT Court documents also show officers spent weeks trying to notify the Grand Tour host. Several letters regarding the offences were sent to his multi-million-pound portfolio of homes in a bid to track him down. Police sent speeding tickets to a Grade II listed Herefordshire castle bought by Hammond in 2012. They also sent letters to £1 million farm estate near Hereford, but the letters were returned from both addresses marked as “addressee gone away.” Most read in The Sun Eventually, cops tracked the star down at his £2 million mansion near Abergavenny in Wales. It was noted more than 30 vehicles are currently registered at the address. Hammond, who worked alongside Jeremy Clarkson and James May on Top Gear and The Grand Tour, has pleaded guilty to two charges of speeding through his lawyers. Police also set out in court papers that Hammond had been accused of another driving offence in August last year. Hammond was prosecuted for two offences of speeding and two further allegations that he had ignored the police letters and failed to identify himself as the guilty driver. In a letter to the court, the presenter’s solicitor pleaded guilty to the speeding charges and denied the other two offences. The letter read: “He replied identifying himself as the driver. He sent the reply by First Class post. He posted the reply himself.” The police force opted to withdraw those extra charges, as Hammond was prosecuted and convicted for the speeding offences in the Single Justice Procedure. Last week at Telford Magistrates Court he was slapped with seven penalty points on his licence. Magistrate Ann Minton also ordered the TV personality to pay a total fine of £1,771. The lump sum was made up of two fines of £333 and £666 as well as £240 in costs and victim surcharges totalling £532. Nicknamed The Hamster by his co-hosts, Hammond almost died in a 320mph jet car crash in 2006 while filming Top Gear. He also received a three-month driving ban in France alongside Clarkson in 2013 when they were caught speeding while filming an episode of the show.