A CHEATING cabbie who persuaded three friends to commit perjury to enable him to get off a speeding summons, has been locked up for 30 months.

Paul Drover, 45, would have got away with the scam if he had not filed a complaint against a police officer who he had, ironically, accused of lying.

However, his behaviour rebounded on him when a former detective who investigated his claim found that his witnesses had themselves been lying when they said they had not known him until the speeding incident in Totton.

One, Matthew Obee, was his son-in-law and he had known Khalid Smaili socially and through business for some time. He had also spoken to the third, Sharron Mucci, several times over the phone.

Now Obee, and Smaili, both 31, have each been jailed for 15 months. Mucci, 25, received 18 months' supervision coupled with an order to do 160 hours' unpaid work after a judge said that she had played a lesser role in the deception.

Jurors heard how the trio had initially fabricated their evidence before New Forest magistrates, supporting Drover's defence that he had not been speeding.

Drover was convicted but took his case to Southampton Crown Court where they all again spoke on his behalf, and the conviction was overturned. Drover however would not leave it alone.

"Displaying some nerve and not recognising a good result when he got it, he claimed one of the police officers had given false evidence," said prosecutor Francis Chamberlain.

Drover was interviewed by retired detective Rex Carpenter, who worked as a civilian for Hampshire Police, dealing with complaints. He later spoke to the magistrates' court clerk and alarm bells began to ring when Obee's name came up.

In his investigation, he discovered a complaint Drover had made three years earlier against the police and found that Obee and Smaili supported it - revealing that they knew the taxi driver.

Drover, of Waverley Green, Millbrook, fellow cabbie Smaili, of Monks Way, Swaythling, and Obee, a senior supervisor in Balfour Beatty's transport department, of Oakwood Drive, Lordshill, were convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Mucci admitted the allegation.

Judge Tom Longbotham said: "It is bad enough to perform an act of perverting the course of justice on the spur of the moment, recognise it was an act of folly and accept the inevitable. It is another to lie in the magistrates' court and to perpetuate that behaviour by lying again in the crown court.

"This offence strikes at the very heart of the criminal justice system."

The court heard that as a result of their conviction, Drover and Smaili's taxi licences had been withdrawn.

Obee's future with his employers, where he was being considered for promotion, was under review.