England and Aston Villa player Jack Grealish has been slapped with a £82,499 fine and banned from driving after being found guilty of crashing his Range Rover following a party during lockdown – not to mention this happening while wearing odd slippers and reeking of booze.
The 25-year-old Aston Villa ace – who Birmingham magistrates were told earns £55,000 a week – had admitted his guilt for reckless driving after CCTV cameras showed his car had ‘reversed at speed’ into a van, ‘swerved’ to ‘side-swipe’ a Mercedes, then slammed into a wall.
Grealish’s counsel, John Dye, said his client was ‘deeply ashamed, genuinely sorry’ and had paid for the damage, adding: ‘He was wearing totally inappropriate footwear.’
The crash came a day after the footballer made a Twitter video urging fans to stay home. What a howler!
Grealish also admitted doing 98mph on the M42 in October while ‘late for training’. Dye said:
‘He’s the club captain and didn’t want to be thought badly of by his peers in the club.’
Grealish, of Barnt Green, Worcestershire, has already had six points on his licence from an earlier accident almost similar in nature and was handed a nine-month driving ban.
District judge John Bristow however said there was ‘no evidence’ Grealish was drink-driving in the prior March 29 crash.