Romeo Beckham Fined for Using Phone While Driving

Romeo Beckham has been fined and handed penalty points on his licence after being caught using 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 stopped by police in Westminster last September when an officer spotted him at a red light with both hands on his phone instead of the steering wheel.

According to court papers, a woman sat in the passenger seat was also looking at her phone, with an unrestrained dog on her lap.

Pc Luke Short, who carried out the stop, said Beckham appeared distracted and not in proper control of the powerful sports car as it waited at the lights on Victoria Street, just before 11.20am on 16 September.

“I looked across at the driver,” Pc Short said in his statement. “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 give “words of advice” about the “insecure load” – the dog sitting freely on the passenger’s lap – rather than pursue a separate offence over the animal.

Rule 57 of the Highway Code states that dogs must be “suitably restrained” in a vehicle, with drivers at risk of prosecution for not being in proper control or for careless driving if they fail to do so.

At Westminster magistrates’ court last Thursday, Beckham was convicted of being a driver not in a position to have proper control. Magistrate Phillip Jordan imposed a £440 fine and endorsed his licence with three penalty points. Beckham was also ordered to pay £130 in costs and a £176 victim surcharge.

Police said Beckham had previously been offered the chance to avoid criminal proceedings by paying a fixed penalty and attending a driver-awareness course, but he did not respond to the offer.

The case inevitably echoes his father’s own brush with the law behind the wheel. Almost seven years earlier, David Beckham received a six-month driving ban after admitting using his mobile phone in slow-moving traffic in London’s West End in 2019. He told the court at the time he would miss driving his children – Romeo, then 16, Cruz, then 14, and Harper, then 7 – to school during the suspension.

Romeo’s offence came just days after he unveiled a new platinum-blond buzzcut at a New York Fashion Week event, a reminder that for the Beckham family, life in the spotlight rarely pauses – even at a red light in Westminster.