Policemen and lawyers call excuses 'mitigating circumstances'. Just how mitigating the circumstances are depends on (a) whether your explanation is believed and (b) whether it strikes a sympathetic chord in the listener.

Prince Philip succeeded on both counts when he was pulled up for speeding on the eve of his wedding. He told the officer: 'I am Prince Philip and I'm on my way to see the Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm a bit late and I didn't want to keep His Grace waiting.' You could try this one yourself, but I can't promise that the patrol-car driver will stand to attention, salute you, and wish you every happiness for the future.

The police, like magistrates and judges, have to be satisfied with your explanation and they are hard men and women to please. A policeman in Somerset apprehended a Polish miner in a local shop in the middle of the night. The officer subsequently gave this evidence against the Pole at Somerset Assizes:

'I cautioned him and asked him if he had any explanation for his presence in the shop at that time of night. He made a long reply in a language which I subsequently ascertained to be Polish. I told him that I was not satisfied with his explanation and arrested him.'

The moral of this story is: if you've got a good excuse, make it in English and not Polish.

Some excuses don't even work in English, of course. Like the youth arrested for riding his motorcycle on the pavement. Asked what he was doing on the footpath, he replied: 'I can't ride on the road yet because I don't have a licence and haven't passed my test.'

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. In fact it has an aggravating effect on policemen and magistrates. Nor is 'But everyone does it' which was the mitigating circumstances pleaded by Charlie Chaplin when he was accused of a sex offence back in the prim and proper 'thirties. (Everyone did it then, everyone does it today, but no one talked about it then, except in court.)

I'd like to believe the next story, which Roy Hudd swears is true; but I don't. Still, it's well worth telling. Essex police pull up a driver after clocking him doing 95 mph down the motorway.

'Where's the fire?' asks the officer, laconically.

'There's no fire,' says the driver. 'I'm a scriptwriter and I've got to get to Clacton before the matinee to rewrite some comedy material for Roy Hudd.'

'In which case, be on your way,' says the policeman. 'I've seen the show and he needs all the help he can get.'

Diarrhoea - suffered by the driver or the passenger-is occasionally accepted by the police as justification for speeding, presumably on the grounds that a nasty accident could occur if the driver didn't reach a loo in time. Medical emergencies are also given sympathetic consideration in motoring offences - but if it gets to court, you may be asked to produce evidence, such as a letter from the hospital or from your doctor.

I never cease to be amazed by the inventiveness of solicitors or barristers when they come to make their give-my-client-a-break speeches to the court. A solicitor defending a burglar at Kettering, Northamptonshire, told the bench:

'As you can see, he is going extremely thin on top. He thought people were going to laugh at him.

'This had the effect of making him feel unsettled and he went out and committed these offences.'

The burglar, who admitted three charges and asked for five further offences to be taken into consideration, was given a suspended sentence.

A chap called Wainwright, on the other hand, who murdered his sister-in-law, failed to win the sympathy of the court. When asked why he had done it, he replied: 'Because she had thick ankles.' He was sentenced to death.

The credibility of motorists - and defending lawyers - is frequently stretched to breaking point in drink-driving cases. A 66-year-old major from Whittington, Staffordshire, claimed it was the brandy pudding that pushed him over the top. 'You can hardly cross-examine your hostess about the contents of a dish you are about to eat,' said his defending counsel. The major was fined £45.

TV personality Hughie Green said he was on 'an errand of mercy for a viewer who suffered from asthma' when he was arrested for being unfit to drive through drink. He told Guildford Crown Court:

'As a young man I suffered from asthma but I was cured by a doctor. He later died, but passed on his cure to the doctor who took over the practice. That doctor also eventually died.'

Green explained that an asthma sufferer who watched Opportunity Knocks asked for help, so he drove to see the widow of the second doctor, intending to borrow a medical book. But it could not be found and, during the evening, he had two gins and tonics.

After being stopped by police, Green then failed to blow into a breathalyser. He told the court that this was because he had lost the use of part of a lung.

His complex story was enough to bring tears to the eyes of everyone except the jury and the Recorder. He was fined £250 and banned for three years.

Motorists in danger of losing their licences produce the most fanciful excuses of all, to the constant amusement of the beaks on the bench. But a recent article in The Magistrate, the trade paper of the bench, helpfully listed seven 'special reasons' in drink-driving cases which allow magistrates to exercise their discretionary powers not to impose a ban.

• Driving to (but not from) an emergency - i.e., accident to child, fire in shop, there being no other way to contact the emergency services.
• Unwitting victims of drink-lacing, the victim believing that he is drinking a non-alcoholic drink, or very slightly alcoholic drink.
• Unwitting and ignorant victim of effect of combination of drugs and small quantity of alcohol.
• Unwitting exposure to alcoholic fumes in an industrial process.
• Unwitting victim of electric shock.
• Unwitting sufferer from disease.
• Parked vehicle moved a few yards by wedding guest in response to police request.

Take your pick.

For utter finality, you can't beat the excuse, 'I'm dead." Even the police don't pursue you beyond the grave; unless you're Lord Lucan, that is. A friend -just a friend, you understand - smashed his car up and ended up in hospital for a week with minor head injuries. While there, he was visited by the police who cautioned him, then charged him with dangerous driving, of which he was undoubtedly guilty.

When the summons arrived at his home two or three weeks later, my friend didn't open it but wrote instead on the buff official envelope: 'Addressee deceased as a result of head injuries sustained in motor accident one month ago. Return to sender.' He then handed the recorded-delivery letter back to the postman. He never heard another word.

In the search for mitigating circumstances, no depth of hypocrisy is too low to stoop to. You can't go far wrong if you remember the words of Abraham Lincoln who once said of a political rival: 'He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.'

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