The Archbishop of Canterbury has reportedly been fined £510 in legal costs after being convicted of speeding.

According to the Daily Mail, the Most Rev Justin Welby was yesterday also handed three penalty points after being snapped by a speed camera doing 25mph in a 20mph limit on London’s Albert Embankment.  It happened while he was driving his VW Golf, near to Lambeth Palace, at just after 11am on Sunday 2 October last year.

The Metropolitan Police's threshold for issuing a speeding ticket in a 20 zone, is 24 miles an hour.

As a Band A offence - the lowest level for breaking the speed limit - the Archbishop would initially have received notice of a smaller fine, but the case went to court after attempts to make the payment online failed to go through.  A Lambeth Palace spokesperson said :

“Yes, the Archbishop knows about it but hadn’t been notified that it had gone to court.

"He has tried to resolve this and pay the fine three times.

"He has all the paperwork to prove that he has tried to pay. Admin errors seem to be causing problems.”

Archbishop Welby didn’t have to appear in court in person because he admitted the offence online. He was ordered to pay a fine of £300, plus £90 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge. Victim surcharges are payable by anyone who has a fine handed down through the courts, and the money is used to fund victim support services.

The fine came on the same day Justin Welby stood up in the House of Lords to criticise the government’s Illegal Migration Bill – and less than a week after he crowned King Charles III at Westminster Abbey.