A YORK court has lifted a speeding motorist's six-month driving ban so he can continue to help save the lives of heart patients.

Matthew Paul Hallam, 29, was driving at 103mph when police stopped him on the A1(M) near Knaresborough as he was on his way to an emergency at a Newcastle hospital, York Crown Court heard.

Richard Scott, prosecuting, said he already had nine points on his licence for speeding.

Harrogate magistrates banned him for six months and fined him £500 with £50 costs.

But Hallam's barrister, Rennick Chapman, said the ban would have grave consequences for the community as a whole.

Hallam told the court he was the only man in the country who could operate a recently-invented machine to help surgeons perform heart surgery.

He was on his way to an emergency call-out at a Newcastle hospital when he was stopped at Allerton Park on the A1.

And although he had managed to cover the three main hospitals he served since his ban was imposed on August 14, it was only by luck.

Judge Paul Hoffman, sitting with two magistrates, said: "We feel that the effect of his disqualification means that he, sooner or later, will fail to go to the succour of a heart patient who desperately needs his service."

He lifted the remainder of the ban.

Hallam, of Evesham Road, Broadway, near Stratford-on-Avon pleaded guilty to speeding and was appearing at York to appeal against his sentence.

He said he travelled about 1,000 miles a week between Southampton, London and Newcastle as well as hospitals in 20 other places.

The judge warned him that he was "walking a knife-edge" and said he could not use the nature of his job to escape a driving ban should he again break the law.