Glen Mansfield caught speeding on Bruce Hwy rushing pregnant wife to hospital

A father of four, who was worried he wasn’t going to get his wife from their country town to hospital before she gave birth, has fronted court for speeding.

Glen Iva Mansfield, pictured here with his family, has copped a speeding fine after being caught by a fixed camera while rushing his labouring wife to Gympie Hospital. Picture: Facebook

A dad, who copped a speeding fine for driving too fast with his labouring wife in the passenger seat, has been told the trip was “not an extreme emergency”.

Glen Iva Mansfield, from the country community of Kandanga in the Mary Valley, was captured on a fixed speed camera speeding through the intersection of Wickham St (the Bruce Highway) and Monkland St, Gympie on June 11.

At the time he was going 84km/h in a 60km/h zone.

The 44-year-old represented himself in Gympie Magistrates Court this week and told the magistrate the baby born at the local hospital later that day was the couple’s fourth child.

As their third was born only three hours after his wife first went into labour, he had decided to rush her to Gympie Hospital this time around after her contractions rapidly reduced from seven minutes apart to just two.

Mansfield was snapped at the intersection of the Bruce Highway and Monkland St in Gympie.

Mansfield tendered documents to the court showing his wife Casey gave birth only two hours after he was snapped by the camera.

Magistrate Chris Callaghan said calling an ambulance (even though Kandanga is a rural area) would have been the better choice.

Mansfield traffic history, submitted to the court, showed the 44-year-old had committed seven offences between 2002 and 2013.

Five of these were for exceeding the speed limit by less than 15km/h.

He had committed no offences in the eight years since, until this latest.

He accepted Mansfield’s guilty plea and noted he was caught was “during an emergency, but just not an extreme emergency”.

Mansfield was fined $100 and ordered to pay another $105.43 in court costs.

No conviction was recorded.

Queensland police do allow people to apply to have their fines waived while “acting under circumstances that support a sudden or extraordinary emergency”.

Applicants must provide “documentary evidence from the medical provider”, including the circumstances of the emergency.

Originally published as Glen Mansfield caught speeding on Bruce Hwy rushing pregnant wife to hospital