Bermudian newspaper that he was speeding.

And Mr. Francis has suggested that the reporter who wrote the article check the calibration on his car's speedometer.

Mr. Larry Burchall, in his column in the Bermuda Times, claimed he followed the Senior Magistrate's car, travelling at the same speed between 45kph to 50kph.

He wrote: "If all of `respectable people' routinely drive at 50kph, and in doing so break the law, one might expect Her Majesty's Chief Upholder of the Law at least to keep her Majesty's Law -- even if he is the only person in Bermuda who does.

"And if Her Majesty's Chief Beak did keep Her Majesty's Laws, one could more easily accept one's punishment when a Magistrate ladled out a hefty fine or a lengthy disqualification for exceeding Her Majesty's 35kph speed limit.'' He asked if Mr. Francis was going to `clean up his act.' Mr. Francis was not given an opportunity to reply to the accusation in the column.

However, the Senior Magistrate told The Royal Gazette yesterday that he did not really want to comment on the allegation.

"I do not really think this is worth commenting on. I just wonder whether Larry Burchall had a slack day in the newspaper,'' he said.

"One has to question whether someone can judge someone else's speed. Is he sure that his own speedometer is correct? Is he sure it was correctly calibrated? "The only official way to judge someone's speed is by using radar. His speedometer could have been out by more than 5kph.''