A motorcyclist was caught riding at 138 mph on the A5 in North Wales – one of the highest speeds ever recorded.

His speed was described as “astonishing” in court today (Wednesday).

Pablo Maxwell, a 38-year-old self-employed carpenter from Telford, admitted breaking the 60 mph limit on the A5 at Ty Nant near Corwen last summer.

At Flintshire Magistrates’ court at Mold he was banned from driving for 90 days, fined £500 with £85 costs and a £50 surcharge.

Magistrates said that they were “horrified” at his speed.

They did not accept that he could see ahead at that speed and said that they would be failing in their public duty if they allowed him to carry on driving.

Prosecutor Alun Williams told the court that it was an astonishingly high speed – well over twice the limit.

He said a roads policing officer was in a camera van monitoring traffic after 10am in August when he saw a BMW 1,000 RR machine pass well in excess of the speed limit.

The camera clocked him at 138 mph.

It was an aggravating feature that the photograph produced of the machine showed the defendant riding towards a triangular warning sign warning of a pedestrian crossing 250 yards ahead of him.

Defending solicitor Mike Gray said that his client had a clean driving licence and had no offences before or since.

He said: “138 mph speaks of itself. I am not going to insult the court’s intelligence by attempting to condone this speed in any way.”

But apart from the approaching zebra crossing there were no aggravating features to the speed or he would have been charged with dangerous driving.

The machine he was riding was “one of the latest generation of motorcycles”.

It was extremely powerful and was extremely well equipped with brakes which could stop the machine very, very quickly indeed.

The motorcycle could get up to tremendous speeds very quickly, almost “within the blink of an eye”.

He had a straight clear view ahead of him with nothing in his way.

The defendant had accelerated hard up an incline, it was very easy to get to such a high speed on his motorcycle, and it had not been for a great distance when he was caught on the footage.

Maxwell, of Telford Road, Wellington near Telford, had not been speeding on the remainder of the journey or he would have caught on the many cameras that there were on the road from Shropshire, he said.

Weather conditions were fantastic, clear and dry and he was using a motorcycle which was capable of stopping within the distance that he could see ahead of him.

As a self-employed carpenter he had thousands of pounds worth of tools which he needed to carry to jobs in his van.

He was currently on the sick because of a knee problem.

The defendant was realistic and knew he would be banned from driving but Mr Gray said that he and his partner had a mortgage to meet.

The offence was “entirely out of character” by an experienced motorcyclist who foolishly took his machine up to a very high speed.