Court summons - driving with mobile phone

Happychappy

Milky, dont waste your money on a solicitor if you intend to plead guilty and want to go to court in person. A solicitor will not always get the personal message across of how you couldnt find your licence, your personal circumstances etc, also how very sorry you are and how it was a one off under stress, no excuse but something you wanted to let the court know.

The court may well fine you £60 plus court costs for the mobile phone offence and not fine or proceed for the fail to produce offence, you MUST take your licence with you to court.

The eat humble pie and prepared to turn up in person to plead guilty does have an impact on the Magistrates, you really dont need costly legal assistance. The clerk of the court will help you and will ask you what happened and what you wish to say to the court, it isnt as bad as you think, believe me, I have attended courts for over thirty years : (

FARE-COP

as others have said:

1. The use of the phone whilst the car engine is running almost guarantees a conviction.

The law says you are in control of the vehicle. In fact, if the engine was off, but the keys in the ignition, they could argue on the same basis.

2. The failure to produce within the specified time will likely bring the same result.

Any Magistrates will ask the simple question did you know you needed to produce it?
Answer, Yes.

Is it reasonable to expect that if, in your condition, you could not retrieve it yourself, you could not get someone else to do it for you in the time allowed? Answer, No.

Plead not guilty, get the solicitor, then, when he fails to get you off you are convicted and the court does not accept your plea, you will not only have the full 'old bird' fine to pay because you challenged the charge and were found guilty, but you will have to pay the solicitor's full whack too.

Plead guilty by post, send a letter of mitigation with your statement of means and accept the punishment would be my advice

The court will then decide on the fine, reduce it by a factor taking into account your early plea, may reduce it further in consideration of your mitigation and further still according to means and ability to pay.

You will usually then get a notice advising that you have 28 days to pay, so you contact the court fines officer within that time and state you cannot pay in one go. If you can show evidence to support that a mutually agreed payment plan will be set up.

You could engage a solicitor and plead guilty, get him to put your mitigation and maybe, just maybe, he'll get the fine reduced a little, but you'd still have his exhorbitant fees to pay on top anyway.

Oh, you'll also have the prosecution costs to pay too

Gordon861

Just plead guilty when you get to court, also make sure you have a copy of the letter you were sent when they returned the fine that you paid.

Explain to the magistrate that you have attempted to plead guilty to the case previously even going so far as paying the fine. The only reason you are in court now is because you lost your driving licence during your move, and as soon as you realised it was missing you ordered and paid for a new one from the DVLA(take the receipt/letters etc).

Apoligise that the matter has taken up the courts time and tell them that you have done everything possible to pay the fine and get the matter delt with before it reached this stage. Tell them that you took the licence into the Police station as soon as you recieved the new one but they refused to take it even though you had already paid the fine.

Make sure you take as much supporting information with and if you can get it all in writing and send a copy into the court as your eveidence beforehand.

You will probably just get the same points and fine as you would have done from the fixed penalty.

There is also a fair chance they may have a go at the CPS for wasting the courts time with a matter that could reasonably easily have been delt with outside.

housesitter

I read a recent thread on a car forum where the accused stated he was not using a mobile phone.
That the police couldn't possibly have seen if he was or not given the position and lighting conditions. The records provided by his mobile operator showed he wasn't but he wasn't allowed to submit them on the grounds that he might have other phones.

He got legal advice from lawyers on the car forum, they all thought he had a pretty good case.
By chance, due to a forgetful father on producing at the station they found he wasn't insured.
At the court he pleaded guilty on the no insurance and not guilty on the mobile phone.

Basically they did him over on it and he was fined and got the points.
Don't expect you'll get away with anything other than guilty in your situation.

CHR15

I was in a kind of simlar position many years ago.

Got pullled over for speeding (85 on the motorway), fair cop guv' no complaints.

The day I went to produce my documents my little 'un threw up all over my arm in the car (bless!).

I went home to change the little 'un, wife decided to stuff my coat in the washing machine, ALL my documents in the pockets. I had taken the whole lot, Driving Licence, MOT, Insurance even the log book.

All destroyed.

Feeling guilty the wife spread all the soggy paper on the kitchen table to dry out, all colour coded, Pink for Driving License, brown for MOT, blue for Log book, White for Insurance.

Once dried out, all coloured paperwork was placed into individual plastic sandwich bags.

I took it all to the Police Station (still within the 7 days), placed them neatly on the table and said "Well Officer??"

The Police had a good chuckle about it and told me to get replacements for the insurance and MOT. He said you will not get a new Driving License back in time but go and pay the fine anyway. He entered the details in the incident log and gave me a reference if I had problems.

My Fine was returned and I had the same letter of prosecution. I tried all sorts once I had received my new license. I even sent a cheque off with a grovelling letter to the guy in charge of fine collections (which included a letter from the Police Station I initially produced at).

All efforts were rejected... Off to Court I went.

I explained everything to the Duty Solicitor (who is free).

He stood up in court and spoke for me. The Judge turned to me and said,

"Well Mr CHR15, I have heard of Laundering Money, but this is ridiculous!!"

He awarded me the 3 points, £60 fixed penalty with no charges, exactly the same as I would have got if I had produced all the documents in time.


The Moral I learned is,

Don't waste too much time about it. Be Honest and explain what happened to the Duty solicitor, it costs nothing.

The Judges aren't all out to make your life difficult and relieve you of all your money

just keep your fingers crossed he is in a good mood on the day.

Milky_Mocha

Thanks for all your replies (except the rude ones of course. There's really no need for rudeness, jeannieblue. Its amazing how 'mouthy' some people can be in the safety of the internet.)

I sent off my guilty by post plea on Tuesday, complete with all the mitigating points as advised. I did not include the letter regarding return of the fine though. Wish I had. I opted not to go to court. With a newborn and a toddler and a hubby who is almost always away on business it would be more hassle than its worth to me.

Looks like I won't hear anything back until the date of the hearing, unfortunately, which is not till March.

Gordon861

Send a followup letter to get added to the file, say you forgot to add a copy of the letter into your last submission. It can't hurt.