A BUILDER caught speeding at more than 120mph on the M4 has had a driving ban cut after a court heard he was rushing his young daughter to hospital.

Gregg Holmes was disqualified for 70 days by magistrates for speeding along the motorway to the Great Western Hospital.

But the 29-year-old had four weeks chopped off the ban after a court heard he was taking his three-year-old to hospital after she took a packet of Calpol.

Holmes was appealing at Swindon Crown Court against the 10-week ban imposed by North Wiltshire magistrates after he was caught at 121mph by a speed camera.

He said he was fitting a kitchen in Groundwell Road when his girlfriend called to say the child had taken 11 sachets of the paracetamol-based painkiller.

Both of them phoned NHS Direct independently and were told to get the child to a hospital.

He said he then drove to his partner's Turner Street home before getting on to the motorway at junction 16 and setting off for the hospital.

But at 12.33pm on Wednesday, July 20 last year he was clocked at 121mph by a speed camera on the eastbound carriageway between junctions 16 and 15.

The court heard how medical records showed the girl arrived at accident and emergency at 12.46pm, was seen by a doctor at 1.30pm and released to go home half an hour later.

Cross-examining, John Dyer, for the Crown, put to him that the medical record said the girl hadn't been sick and was discharged in less than an hour.

He said to Holmes: "She was a child in a worrying condition, not a serious one," to which Holmes replied: "I don't know, I'm not a doctor."

Holmes, currently unemployed and of no fixed abode but with a postal address in Penhill, had pleaded guilty to speeding and was fined £150 along with the ban.

Judge John McNaught, sitting with two magistrates, ruled they would reduce the ban from 70 days to 42 days.

He said they thought Mr Holmes had acted in the heat of the moment thinking he was in an emergency.