Romeo Beckham has been fined over £700 after he was caught scrolling on his mobile phone while driving his Porsche 911, with a dog loose in the vehicle. The 23-year-old model was stopped by police in Westminster last September when an officer spotted him using both hands on his phone instead of the steering wheel at a red traffic light.
According to court documents, a woman in the passenger seat was also looking at her phone and had an unrestrained dog on her lap. The officer stated that Beckham was distracted and lacked proper control of the supercar.
At Westminster Magistrates' Court last Thursday, Beckham was convicted of driving without proper control. He was fined £440, given three penalty points on his license, and ordered to pay £130 in costs and a £176 victim surcharge by Magistrate Phillip Jordan.
The case comes nearly seven years after his father, Sir David Beckham, was banned from driving for six months for using his mobile phone while driving. In 2019, the former footballer admitted to using his phone in slow traffic in the West End and expressed concern about missing driving his children to school during the ban.
Romeo Beckham, the second son of David and Victoria Beckham, was caught by Metropolitan Police Pc Luke Short on September 16 last year while waiting at a red light on Victoria Street, Westminster, just before 11.20am. The officer reported passing the Porsche 911 Carrera and noting the driver was distracted due to the scene inside.
“As I passed the vehicle on its nearside, I looked down to my right and noted that there was an unrestrained dog sitting on the female passenger's lap,” the officer wrote. “The female had her head down and was holding a mobile phone. I looked across at the driver. I saw that he too had his head tilted down and appeared to be looking down at a mobile phone he was holding low in his lap, near the base of the steering wheel. I could see that he was scrolling on the device with his thumbs.”
The officer pulled Beckham over and chose to offer words of advice regarding the insecure load, specifically the dog. Rule 57 of the Highway Code requires dogs to be suitably restrained in a vehicle, and drivers can be prosecuted for careless driving if the animal causes a distraction.
Beckham’s encounter with the law occurred shortly after he debuted a platinum blonde buzzcut at New York Fashion Week. Two days after the incident, he made his runway debut at London Fashion Week for H&M. Police stated that Beckham was offered the chance to pay a fine and attend a driver awareness course to avoid prosecution for phone use, but he did not respond. He was subsequently prosecuted through the single justice procedure, which handles driving offenses in private hearings. The court noted that Beckham did not enter a plea when contacted at his luxury southwest London apartment, and he was convicted based on police evidence last Thursday.
