‘Harry Potter’ star Emma Watson banned from driving for six months

(CNN) — Former “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson has been banned from driving for six months after being caught speeding. The 35-year-old British actress and activist was clocked driving her blue Audi at 38 miles per hour in a 30-mph zone in Oxford, England, on the evening of July 31 last year. She did not appear for the brief hearing at High Wycombe Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, where she was fined £1,044 ($1,400) and disqualified from driving, according to PA Media. Shortly after Watson’s case was heard, the court considered a separate speeding offense involving her former “Harry Potter” co-star, Zoë Wanamaker. The celebrated stage actress, who played Quidditch referee Madam Hooch in the franchise’s first film, received the same sentence as Watson after she was caught driving at 46 mph in a 40 mph zone in Berkshire, southeast England in August last year, PA reported. According to the news agency, both actresses had nine penalty points on their licenses before the speeding incidents occurred. On Wednesday, District Judge Arvind Sharma endorsed three further points on their licenses for the latest offences, which triggered automatic six-month bans under UK law. CNN has reached out to Watson’s representatives for comment. A representative for Wanamaker declined to comment. The parallel rulings mark a curious convergence for two actors whose careers once intersected in the halls of Hogwarts, and who now find themselves off the road at the same time. Watson, who rose to global fame playing Hermione Granger across all eight “Harry Potter” films, has since pursued a parallel path in academia, filmmaking and women’s rights advocacy. Her post-”Potter” screen work includes leading roles in “Beauty and the Beast” and Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.”

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