Romeo Beckham Fined for Phone Use While Driving
Romeo Beckham has been fined and handed penalty points after a police officer caught him scrolling on his phone at the wheel of his Porsche 911 Carrera in central London.
The 23-year-old, son of former England captain David Beckham, was pulled over in Westminster last September when an officer saw him at a red light with both hands on his phone instead of the steering wheel.
A woman sat beside him in the front passenger seat, also looking at her phone, with an unrestrained dog on her lap, according to court documents.
Pc Luke Short, who stopped the car on Victoria Street just before 11.20am on 16 September, said Beckham was clearly distracted.
“I looked across at the driver,” his statement read. “I saw that he ... 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.”
The officer pulled the Porsche over and challenged Beckham about his behaviour. He chose to issue only “words of advice” over the unsecured dog, describing it as an “insecure load”, but the phone use would prove more costly.
Rule 57 of the Highway Code states that dogs must be “suitably restrained” in a vehicle so they cannot distract the driver or cause injury in a sudden stop. Drivers risk prosecution for driving without proper control or for careless driving if they ignore it.
At Westminster magistrates’ court last Thursday, Beckham was convicted of being a driver not in a position to have proper control of the vehicle. Magistrate Phillip Jordan imposed a £440 fine and three penalty points on his licence, along with £130 in costs and a £176 victim surcharge.
Police said Beckham had previously been offered the chance to pay a fixed penalty and attend a driver-awareness course to avoid criminal proceedings, but he did not respond.
The case inevitably invites comparison with his father’s own brush with the law. Almost seven years ago, David Beckham received a six-month driving ban for using his mobile phone at the wheel in slow-moving traffic in London’s West End in 2019. He admitted the offence and told the court he would miss driving his children – Romeo, then 16, Cruz, 14, and Harper, 7 – to school during the ban.
For Romeo, the incident came just days after he unveiled a new platinum-blond buzzcut at a New York Fashion Week event – a reminder that away from the runways and the spotlight, the rules of the road still apply.
