The "moment of madness" defence crops up in London

We see that in London a lorry driver managed to avoid any penalty for reversing over someone in a lorry with the reverse beep disabled, the reversing camera broken and the mirrors set up wrong - by playing the "moment of madness" defence:

Defence counsel Matthew Hardyman told the court his client had suffered from a “moment of madness”

There must be some legal symposium we must attend on "effective use of the 'moment of madness' defence", with speakers discussing how they used to explain various celebrities about engaging in a bit of paid or consensual sex with strangers -which is a key part of Stokes Croft's nightlife- or how they used it to explain some road-rage incident.

I you search for "told the court" and "moment of madness", it does seem to crop up surprisingly often.

In this particular case, however, we have a question for the defence: how you explain the failure of three separate safety devices as "a moment of madness", We'd love to know that -so the next time we get pulled over on the M4 roadworks for having defective lights, brakes, rear tyres and wing mirrors that are montpelier-normal, but which the traffic officer considered "missing".

Can you imagine explaining to the officer asking "why is your vehicle so unsafe" that the decision to drive from Stokes Croft to Birmingham in a vehicle in that state was "a moment of madness"?

It just wouldn't work, would it? MoM is the excuse for "being caught in-flagrante", a bit of road-rage, or "stabbing a relative to death".

The correct response when asked by the police why your van or lorry is unsafe is "I am a donor to the Conservative party and a part time magistrate". Works every time.