The police will clamp down on drivers who use lawyers to escape speeding or drink- driving convictions, a senior officer warned today.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) wants police and Crown Prosecution Service solicitors to make stronger cases against drivers whose lawyers exploit legal loopholes to evade convictions.

Meredydd Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, said that officers would be "looking for" motorists who had been "unjustly acquitted" after police forces across Britain voiced frustration that lawyers are using small print to win acquittals for people charged with reckless or drink-driving.

Nick Freeman, a lawyer who has earned the nickname Mr Loophole after his success in helping celebrities avoid driving convictions, hit back at the proposals saying drivers would not be wrongly acquitted if the police prosecuted cases properly.

"There are no such things as ‘loopholes’ in these cases - it is simply the word of the law. People are acquitted because the police are not doing their job properly," Mr Freeman, who has successfully defended clients including David Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson, said.

Civil rights groups also raised concerns about the clampdown. James Welch, legal director of Liberty, said "Officers must be careful not to target people who’ve been cleared of dangerous driving charges, in particular by stopping them repeatedly if there is no cause."

But Mark Stephens, partner at Finers Stephens Innocent, criticised Liberty’s position.

"It is clearly appropriate to utilise scarce policing resources to target the most likely miscreants. For years the police have developed a standard procedure of running patrols past the homes of those that have lost their licences in order to ascertain if they are driving whilst disqualified - such sensible policing should not be the subject of knee-jerk criticism," he said.

Road safety campaigners also welcomed the proposals. Carole Whittingham, National Secretary of the Campaign Against Drink Driving, said drivers exploit the fact that many lawyers are far more familiar with road traffic laws than police officers are.

"I think it’s definitely going to be a good thing that police are better trained. I think that some drivers, particularly high-profile ones in the media, are getting away with all sorts of charges, just because of these loopholes," she said.

"But I think the judicial system needs to be involved as well: there’s no point saying to police ‘we’re going to train you so you’re up to speed on the law’ if the judicial system doesn’t back it up."

"We need to look at the whole picture, close the loopholes obviously, but also get the judicial system to be looking at how the law is implemented to ensure the right penalties are given to those who go out and commit those offences," Ms Whittingham added.

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