A 67-year-old woman has received six penalty points for having no insurance after her daughter mistakenly insured her own car twice.

Stanilawa Banas with an address of Knockninny Park, Derrylin was spoken to by police on July 9, 2019 after police checks found the car she was driving had no insurance.

Officers were on patrol in the Derrylin area at around 6pm on the day in question when they observed a Renault Megane pass them on the Main Street in the village. Checks showed there was no insurance on the car.

The defendant pulled into a shop on the Main Street and police went and spoke to the driver via an interpreter. Further checks with the Motor Insurance Bureau revealed no policy was in force and had not been since November 20, 2018.

The defendant was cautioned and because she had no endorsable licence the matter was reported to the Public Prosecution Service.

Banas’ solicitor, Sean McHugh, told the court it was an unfortunate sequence of events which led to the defendant coming before the court.

He said his client was a Polish national who had been living in Fermanagh for 13 years.

In November, 2018 her husband who was living in Poland died and they travelled over.

It was at this time that the insurance expired.

In December, 2018, Banas’ daughter, who looked after the insurance for her mother, went to reinsure both vehicles but it transpired that she insured her own vehicle twice. When the mistake was realised it was reinstated immediately.

In handing down the penalty points, District Judge Paul Copeland described the incident as an “unfortunate error”.