A TEENAGER from Abergele who did not comply with a red traffic light in Rhyl said he was being “distracted” by motorists being “abusive” and “threatening” towards him.

The teenager, 17, was fined and had his driving licence endorsed with three penalty points at Llandudno Magistrates’ Court on March 13.

He had previously admitted a charge of failing to comply with road light signals.

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On March 23, 2023, the court heard, the teenager was riding a moped when he drove through a red light by Rhyl’s police station and HSBC bank branch at about 7.30pm.

The teenager said he did not know the area well, and had shared a pizza with friends at a café along the town’s seafront that afternoon, before travelling to Rhyl’s Vue cinema to see a film.

But enroute to the cinema, despite using satellite navigation, he “got lost” and ended up taking a more circuitous route, and said he became distracted by the driver of a “blacked-out car” driving “aggressively”.

Those within the car were said to have been “verbally abusive” and were threatening the teenager, which made him feel “vulnerable” on his moped.

A person of previous good character, this was his first appearance before the courts.

Sentencing, District Judge Gwyn Jones ordered that the teenager pays a £100 fine, as well as £85 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service, and a £40 surcharge.

He told the teenager: “Regrettably, the route that you took to the area doesn’t, in my view, stand up to scrutiny.

“You did not make a complaint to police (about those in the ‘blacked-out car’, and it is only at a later stage that this has come back.”