Mo Kudus has become the latest Hammer to be convicted of a driving offence after he was caught using a mobile phone while in charge of a vehicle.
The 24-year-old Ghanaian international was spotted by a passing police officer leaving the club's Rush Green training ground on 30 April 2024 while driving his Mercedes.And although he claimed he had only been fine-tuning the vehicle's satnav system, he was subsequently issued with a fixed penalty by the Met Police.
As a result of failing to pay the fine, Kudus was prosecuted for using a handheld mobile phone while driving a motor vehicle on a road.
Last week he was convicted at Lavender Hill magistrates court and ordered to pay a fine of £220, given six penalty points and told to pay £110 in costs plus an £88 victim surcharge.
Kudus, who did not appear in court did not enter a plea.
"I was approaching the set of traffic lights at the junction of Wood Lane and Whalebone Lane heading west", said PC James Palmer, who was riding a police motorbike at the time.
"I was filtering through traffic when I noticed that the driver of this vehicle was using a hand-held mobile device whilst driving. The device was being held in their left hand, in front of themselves.
"The driver was engaging with the phone, I could see the screen was illuminated and the driver made repeated contact with the screen using their left thumb. They were using the device, their vision was engaged with the screen as well as their thumb and I could also see there seemed to be a delayed reaction to the gap increasing in front of them where traffic had moved off for the green phase of the lights."
Kudus is just the latest in a long line of Hammers to have had their collars felt for driving-related offences. Some more recent examples include:
* Carlton Cole was arrested in 2008 on suspicion of drink driving when he was stopped for driving erratically along the Victoria Embankment at just after 4am. "I let the club down and am sorry to the fans," he later said. In 2015, he was banned from driving for two years.
* Right-back Gary Charles fled the scene of an accident in 2003 after crashing his Mercedes. Charles was so drunk at the time that he left a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the passenger seat. The fromer England international was jailed for four months and banned from driving for four years.
* Diego Tristan, 33 at the time was banned from driving for 32 months after being caught drunk at the wheel in 2009. He was fined £3,500 and banned from driving for three years.
* Trevor Sinclair, who played for West Ham in the late nineties and early noughties was arrested on suspicion of drink driving and other offences following a disturbance in Lytham back in 2017.
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