Man pays a £1,200 fine with 120,000 pennies

Man pays a £1,200 fine with 120,000 pennies weighing almost half a tonne after he failed to register his car off the road

  • Matthew Lemm, 39, from Cannock, Staffordshire, paid fine in a mass of pennies
  • Mr Lemm had failed to tick a box to notify DVLA that his car would be off the road
  • The steakhouse business owner told bailiff he would pay ‘every single penny’     
  • Coins weighed in at staggering 926 pounds with each penny weighing 0.1 ounce 

A businessman decided to settle a £1,200 fine with a car boot full of 120,000 one pence pieces weighing in at almost half a tonne. 

Matthew Lemm, 39, owner of Lockside Steakhouse, from Cannock, Staffordshire, stashed the coppers into the boot of a £50,000 white Ford Mustang. 

Mr Lemm had failed to tick the Statutory Off Road Notification box to let the DVLA know that his vehicle would be off the road.   


Matthew Lemm, 39, from Cannock Staffordshire shows the bailiff the 120,000 pennies stashed in his £50,000 white Ford Mustang. Inside the boot is a miniature bucket and spade intended to help the bailiff dig out the payment

The business owner arranged with a bailiff to pay ‘every single penny’ of the six-year-old debt and withdrew 120,000 coins from Barclays Bank in Walsall, West Midlands, to settle the bill.   

The hilarious footage shows Mr Lemm opening the boot to the bailiff to reveal the mountain of pennies with a bucket and spade inside to dig out the coins. 

However the bailiff appears shocked as he is confronted with the mass of coins to pay off the longstanding bill.  


Mr Lemm pictured with the 12,000 coins (left) weighing a huge 926 pounds that he stashed in his boot. The coppers in the Ford boot are pictured beside a bucket and spade in an attempt to make light of the payment choice

Despite the perplexed bailiff taking the practical joke in good faith, he states he cannot accepts the mountain of pennies as payment. 

Mr Lemm states to the bailiff that a ‘court fine is payable in anything, anything at all’ and tells how he ‘would like a receipt for the 1200 quid’.  

He tells the bailiff: ‘We have met at a bit of standstill then. You will need to go back to the office and tell them that I have offered payment in full on video and you have refused to take it.’ 

The bailiff begins to laugh as Mr Lemm even says he has ‘a little bucket and spade if he wants to use it’.  


The bailiff stands with his clipboard and looks perplexed at the mountain of coins. He tells Mr Lemm he cannot accept the coins as payment for the six-year-old outstanding £1,200 fine

Mr Lemm claimed the bill was from 2013 when he used to dabble in buying and selling cars to make some cash. 

However when Mr Lemm moved out shortly after selling the car and said he wasn’t aware of the court summons until 2019.

The business owner said:  ‘I received a call from the bailiffs out of the blue. They told me that they were acting on behalf of the court and told me to pay a £1,200 debt over the phone’

He added: ‘The bailiff said if I didn’t pay then he would go round to my address, which wasn’t even mine, and would start removing goods that day.’


Mr Lemm tells the bailiff that the coins should be taken as payment as a court fine is ‘payable in anything’. A woman and a man stand and watch the amusing practical joke as the bailiff and Mr Lemm come to a stand off

The bailiff joked to him that he was ‘fast and efficient at getting the payment’ so began a cunning plan to ‘slow him down’.

Mr Lemm said: ‘I rang up to pre-order the coins the day before. Luckily, we deal with the bank daily and they didn’t even ask why we needed all the coins – they just handed them over.’ 

He added: ‘The look on his face when he saw the pennies was priceless. 

‘I offered to pay but he said he did not have to accept it and left it in the boot.

‘Sadly, the bailiff has classed it as a non-payment and has said he will take it higher.’

The practical joker said he chose to get his own back on the bailiff after his attitude on the phone. 

He said: ‘He said he would have a locksmith, my home and take my possessions on the day that he called me is a little bit extreme.

‘I’ve done this to prove a point – this kind of experience can be a scary thing.’  

Fans of the practical joke commented on the video with one saying he was ‘in stitches’ at Mr Lemm’s payment choice with another adding ‘that serves them right’. 

Marston Holdings has been contacted on a number of occasions for a comment.

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