A woman says her life has been put on hold after she was fined £1,000 and summoned to court for motoring offences she did not commit. Sarmite Reinholde, 33, from Church Village in Rhondda Cynon Taf, had given her Audi A5 back to a finance company in October 2018 having used it for a year, but years later realised the authorities still believed she was the driver of the vehicle, and were sending growing fines to her old address in Barry which she'd been oblivious to.
Four years after giving the car back to the finance company the mother-of-one has clocked up more than a grand in fines which should never have been directed to her, has had to defend herself in court, and has been unable to remove a county court judgement on her name and six points from her licence. Things got so bad for Sarmite that she was even told she could lose her job in insurance over the allegations.
“The first I heard of it was in July last year when I received a message from Preston Magistrates Court telling me I had the fine and six points on my licence and that my case had already been heard in court,” Sarmite told WalesOnline, remembering the day the courts finally reached her at her address in Church Village in July 2021.
