Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has pled guilty to driving carelessly whilst using her phone on 3 July last year.

A car prang in Dulwich could seen her landed with a maximum fine of £5,000 and an endorsement of up to nine points on her licence.

Instead she was fined and ordered to pay £75 costs and a victim surcharge of £15 driving without due care and attention. She was also given three points on her driving licence.

City of Westminster Magistrates' Court heard a second charge of driving while using a mobile phone had been withdrawn.

At the time of the accident she had "strongly refuted" driving without due care and attention whilst using a mobile phone. The fact the second charge was dropped is believed to be behind the guilty plea.

A spokeswoman for the minister said:

"Ms Harman fully accepts the court's judgment.

"Ms Harman is pleased that the potential charges of leaving the scene of an accident without exchanging particulars and failing to report an accident to the police have been dropped.

"Ms Harman is pleased that it has been established that this was not a 'hit and run' accident as portrayed in some media reports.

"It was a parking incident and no damage was done".
 

Attendence in doubt

The Camberwell and Peckham MP did not turn up at City of Westminster Magistrates today to hear the charge. She attended a full Cabinet meeting at No.10 Downing Street at 9am. The CPS said she is not obliged to attend and her spokesperson refused to reveal her movements.

"I'm Harriet Harman, you know where you can get hold of me"

The Crown Prosecution Service issued a summons accusing her of driving without due care and attention and driving while using a hand-held mobile phone.

The Special Crime Division passed a file to prosecutors who decided there was sufficient evidence and it was in the public interest to take her to court.

Witnesses said the Privy Councillor wound down here window saying:

"I'm Harriet Harman, you know where you can get hold of me" then sped off.

The maximum penalties for driving while using a mobile phone are a £1,000 fine and a licence endorsement of three points.

The law banning driving with a mobile phone was introduced in 2003 when Ms Harman was the Solicitor General.
 

Embarrassment

She should know the punishment, after studying politics at York University, Ms Harman qualified as a lawyer and went on to be Legal Officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties.

The smash came the same week her Equality bill was launched. Will the law be as equal?

In September the Attorney General Baroness Scotland was fined £5,000 after being found to have employed a housekeeper who was not legally allowed to work in the UK.

Political opponents have long argued that "law makers cannot be law breakers".

here is also further embarrassment as her husband Jack Dromey, treasurer of the Labour Party and deputy general secretary of Unite trade union, is currently preparing to be controversially parachuted into a Leyton and Wanstead Westminster seat.

Past motoring indiscretions

Harman is not without track record on the road.

Driving organisations were fuming after she was fined just £400 and banned from the road for seven days after being caught speeding at 99mph on the M4 near Swindon in January, 2004. That fine was issued just as it was announced that court fines should be more closely linked to offenders' incomes.

She was also fined £60 and given three penalty points for exceeding a temporary speed limit in Suffolk in April 2007.

The niece of the Lord Longford admitted that offence.