Former Coronation Street actress Helen Flanagan has been banned from driving for six months despite claiming it would cause her "unusual hardship".

The 34-year-old said her Audi, driven by her boyfriend Robbie Talbot, was speeding twice on Merseyside in June last year.

She earlier appeared at Wirral Magistrates' Court charged with two counts of failing to provide information relating to the identity of a driver.

Magistrates said they were not satisfied the ban would cause undue hardship to Flanagan, who already had six penalty points, and ordered her to pay a £2,000 fine, an £800 victim surcharge and £110 prosecution costs.

Flanagan said the remote location of her home in Bolton meant she would "really struggle without a car".

The mother-of-three said she was "in dire straits" financially and could not afford a taxi fare to take her youngest son to daycare.

"My job is really to be a stay-at-home mom. Their dad works outside the home. It's really hard for me to make money now," she said.

“I make money through social media, but it’s different than my income.”

She added: “I think some people might have thought I could easily afford a driver, but that’s not the case.

"I have enough money in my account to pay off my tax and VAT, that's basically it."

She said she also needed the car to take her two eldest children to after-school activities, to see her therapist in Birmingham and to meet her ex-partner, footballer Si, at a service station in Birmingham. Meet Kurt Sinclair. .

She said when she received the speeding fine she told Mr Talbot, who was sitting in the back of the court for the hearing, that he needed to get back to police.

"I very foolishly and naively thought that my boyfriend could respond on my behalf and explain to the police that he was driving, not me," she said.

David Holley, chairman of the magistrates' bench, asked Flanagan whether Mr Talbot could still drive her car if she was banned.

She said: “If my boyfriend took that away from me and he drove my car I would be very, very angry.

"I don't think it's for me."

Patrick Boyes, defending, said: “She was a single mother of three and she was doing the best she could.

"I would invite you to view this case in the light of the cold, hard facts before you, and I would invite you to discover that extraordinary difficulty is a real possibility."

Flanagan offered to pay the fine in monthly installments of £1,000.

She was docked six points for each violation.