Teenager who posed as a train driver gets community service

A teenager who posed as a train driver and drove passengers at up to 100mph was given a community service sentence and put on probation. Nicholas Gray, 18, from Margate, Kent, had held on to his train driver's outfit after two weeks' work experience at London Bridge and Herne Hill stations expired.

For months, he sold tickets and acted as a platform attendant and a cleaner, magistrates had been told at a previous hearing. The court heard that Gray had lost count of the number of times he took the controls of packed trains and drove them at 100mph through the Kent countryside. He was so plausible that rail staff believed he was a trainee and helped to "teach" him how to drive trains.