Help wrongly accused of using mobile phone whilst driving

Encantador

The officer will have made a record of the incident on the day, his statement ill have been taken from that original record.

If you were having a solicitor, I would say you want the officer to be there. If you do not, the decision is more difficult. It could be good to have him there and it could be bad, tough call. His story won`t change though, so on balance I would not have him there and hope to convince the magistrates that he made a genuine mistake.

Yes, having him there could also cost you more in costs.

madmax2 wrote: »

Thanks again for all your replies and advice.

An intersting note is the incident occured in Oct 2006 and the police officer's statement is dated 20.2.07 (4 months later) which maybe explains the fact why there are some inaccuracies i.e. the phone being black when it is in fact silver, the fact that he claims my partner had the phone in his left hand in his left ear (my partner was actually itching his RIGHT ear) - perhaps the details were not that fresh for him after 4 months!

Something else I am a bit unsure about is on The Summons paperwork it says if you intend to plead not guilty to send it back stating this and you will be given a further date for the court hearing. It also mentions:

"APPLICATION: The prosecutor applies for administrative costs in the sum of £40.00 in this case. The facts of the prosecution case are contained within the witness statements, please read them carefully. It is also important that you read the accompanying documentation. Please return the reply form promptly. Costs of £40.00 will be applied for if you plead guilty, however costs may be higher for a not guilty plea or if teh case has to be proved against you" Does this mean that we have to pay £40.00 anyway or only if we lose?


"Written statements have been made by the witnesses and copies enclosed. Each of these statements will be tendered in evidence before the Magistrates unless you want the witness to give oral eveidence. If you want any of these witnesses to give oral evidence you should inform me as soon as possible. If you do not do so within 7 days of receiving this notice and the offence is tried by the Magistrates Court you will lose your right to prevent the statements being tendered in evidence and you will be able to require the attendance of witnesses only with the leave of the court. if you have not informed me that you want the witnesses to attend they will not be present when you appear before the Magistrates (or the case is heard in your absence) and delay and expense will be caused if they then have to be called.

Were not sure whether we should request the officer to be present or not. Perhaps kislaya could advise me on this one. If we do request him to be present does that mean we will have to pay more costs if we lose the case? I suppose if he isn't there it might be better for my partner as all the court will have is his statement with the inaccuracies! Any views would be greatly appreciated.

I have checked both our home and motor insurance for legal cover but unfortunately we are only entitled to advice. It has been suggested to us that we should seek representation from a solicitor which I have made enquiries about but we would have to pay as they don't offer legal aid and this would be very costly. Does anyone have any other ideas?

This whole situation is causing both me and my partner unwarranted stress so depending on what the outcome is I itend to take it further if need to the Police Ombudsman/Court Ombudsman. Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks again to everyone who replied.

Encantador

Quote... I would advise having the officer present as lot's don't show up, forget about it etc which is very good for you if this happens.


I think `lots` is a bit of an exaggeration and the decision should not be taken in the `hope` the officer fails to turn up.

madmax2

Thanks again for all your advice. Just to clarify to Tillson my partner did not have the phone in his hand whilst driving it was in his jacket pocket all the time which he produced to the officer when stopped.

I suppose there are pros and cons to inviting the officer to attend the court hearing. If we don't ask for his presence it could look like my partner is guilty and is frightened of being caught out by the officer when questioned (which is certainly not the case). However, if he is present we could end up paying more costs if found guilty so it is a difficult one without knowing what the outcome will be. However, I think it probably would be best for the officer to be present so if need be he can be cross examined about his inaccuracies with his statement. I suppose we'll just have to hope that the judge on the day realises that my partner is innocent and that as da_boy_wonder says the officer made a human error.

Thanks again for all your helpful advice.

Ivrytwr3

Quote... I would advise having the officer present as lot's don't show up, forget about it etc which is very good for you if this happens.


I think `lots` is a bit of an exaggeration and the decision should not be taken in the `hope` the officer fails to turn up.

Er... lot's don't especially for offences like this. If the officer is on rest days, just finished shift, on holiday etc they may not show. And i was not once suggesting to make the decision based on this, but merely offering something else into this query.

I was involved with a drink driver i had stopped; the driver pleaded not guilty and i was requested to attend court to give evidence. A little before the court date i was contacted by the defendants solicitor to confirm i would be there on time (yeah right!) and stated i would of course be attending. I later received a letter from the courts stating that they had changed their plea to guilty and i would no longer be required. I am 99% sure that they were in the hope i would not attend and would have contested my statement.

peter999

da_boy_wonda wrote: »

I had this exact same thing happen to me!

I was driving along and briefly touched my right ear lobe with my right hand (a little itch/massage kinda thing). This might of been out of nerves as I had a Police traffic car behind me (dont know why I get nervous when they drive behind me, got a clean licence and well kept car, but it just feels like your back on your test again lol). So I got pulled over and asked why I was using my phone while driving, I was shocked and explained (politely) that I had my phone in my jeans pocket and it would have almost impossible to get it out while driving. I then took it out of my pocket and handed it to the officer and told him to check the call log. He had a real attitude (probably because he now relaliased he was wrong) and told me I could have had deleted the log......this went on for a few minutes while his mate checked me and the car out. My argument to him was 'you could not have seen me on my phone a I wasnt on it, you THOUGHT you saw me on it, and now you have investigated the matter you were mistaken' .... this didnt go down too well, but I just needed to get my point across.

I eventually got him to drop the mobile accusation......only to be accused of speeding! I then pointed out that I dont speed on a normal day (genuinely!) so why would I speed (in a 30 zone) with a police traffic car behind me!?!? I asked for some proof, as his car is video equipped and he said it wasnt recording but he didnt need that to give me a ticket.

He 'let me off' after delaying me by about half an hour and his final words were 'keep the speed down and stay off your phone while driving' - madness!!!

...as both my brothers are officers of the law and from what they tell me I just got unlucky and the guy who pulled me over is known to be an idiot, however I was advised not to put in a complaint as life 'could be made difficult for me' by local police.

Typical Police, but it should NOT be like this.

Funny how the Police will trot out lies & codswallop when it suits them.

I think your brothers were just trying to placate your anger, but not giving you the truth of what goes on behind the scenes in the Police. :rolleyes:

peter999

tillson

Thanks for clarifying your point Madmax2. The earlier post that I referred to just made me wonder if your partner was holding a phone to his ear.

Peter999 makes interesting comments. "Funny how the Police will trot out lies & codswallop when it suits them."

Do you have any evidence to support such a claim? And I don't mean any mate of mate stories or an isolated example. I mean irrefutable evidence to support your general sweeping comment that "The Police" lie.

Also "I think your brothers were just trying to placate your anger, but not giving you the truth of what goes on behind the scenes in the Police."

Why what does "go on" behind the scenes? To make insinuations that something underhand and devious is going on generally within the Police Service, you must surely be able to provide cast iron evidence of widespread corruption throughout the Uk. Only a fool would make such an accusation without being able to back it up. I am very sure that you are no fool, so please enlighten us with your insider knowledge of this secret scandal.

I am not a Police Officer or not particularly close to anyone who is. But I absolutely detest this petty sniping at the Police and the attempts to undermine confidence in the Police Service. I am sure Madmax2 is certain that the phone was not being used and it most likely wasn't. I am equally sure that the cop that stopped Madmax's partner was certain that he was using the phone. How do you resolve this?

I just can't believe that the Police Officer would turn up for work and think to himself, I don't have enough paperwork to be getting on with, so today I will risk my livelihood and my pension by stopping a motorist at random who I have no previous knowledge of and fabricate an offense. I can then go to court and commit perjury (carries a life sentence). All over a poxy mobile phone? It just does not add up.

Perhaps the officer was mistaken, but holds a strong and genuine belief that Madmax's partner was using his phone. You will never stop this from happening. It will happen again and it might be me next time and I will have to deal with it how I see fit at the time. What I won't be doing is stamping my feet and making childish worthless comments that the whole of the UK's Police are corrupt.

I think eroding public confidence in The Police is very bad for all of us.

peter999

tillson wrote: »

Thanks for clarifying your point Madmax2. The earlier post that I referred to just made me wonder if your partner was holding a phone to his ear.

Peter999 makes interesting comments. "Funny how the Police will trot out lies & codswallop when it suits them."

Do you have any evidence to support such a claim? And I don't mean any mate of mate stories or an isolated example. I mean irrefutable evidence to support your general sweeping comment that "The Police" lie.

Also "I think your brothers were just trying to placate your anger, but not giving you the truth of what goes on behind the scenes in the Police."

Why what does "go on" behind the scenes? To make insinuations that something underhand and devious is going on generally within the Police Service, you must surely be able to provide cast iron evidence of widespread corruption throughout the Uk. Only a fool would make such an accusation without being able to back it up. I am very sure that you are no fool, so please enlighten us with your insider knowledge of this secret scandal.

I am not a Police Officer or not particularly close to anyone who is. But I absolutely detest this petty sniping at the Police and the attempts to undermine confidence in the Police Service. I am sure Madmax2 is certain that the phone was not being used and it most likely wasn't. I am equally sure that the cop that stopped Madmax's partner was certain that he was using the phone. How do you resolve this?

I just can't believe that the Police Officer would turn up for work and think to himself, I don't have enough paperwork to be getting on with, so today I will risk my livelihood and my pension by stopping a motorist at random who I have no previous knowledge of and fabricate an offense. I can then go to court and commit perjury (carries a life sentence). All over a poxy mobile phone? It just does not add up.

Perhaps the officer was mistaken, but holds a strong and genuine belief that Madmax's partner was using his phone. You will never stop this from happening. It will happen again and it might be me next time and I will have to deal with it how I see fit at the time. What I won't be doing is stamping my feet and making childish worthless comments that the whole of the UK's Police are corrupt.

I think eroding public confidence in The Police is very bad for all of us.

When it comes to motoring offences, people can be convicted on the word of Police without any proof whatsoever.

It happens every day, magistrates rubber stamping convictions.

The OP has had a close call, but the Police KNEW they could rubber stamp a conviction. If it was proven the offence had not been committed, it would be taken the poice officer had made a mistake.

There is no chance whatsoever of an officer being prosecuted for perjury regarding motoring offences.

I would suggest the Police officer "assumed" madmax2 was using his mobile phone.
That is a big difference from seeing it happen.

peter999

tillson

Peter999, I don't think that we will ever agree on this and that probably doesn't matter. What does matter is that we don't make unsubstantiated damaging comments that may influence others. People generally tend to be more interested in bad news and negative comments stick in peoples minds longer than positive ones. So please, if you have something bad to say, by all means say it but make sure you have evidence to back it up.

When it comes to motoring offences, people can be convicted on the word of Police without any proof whatsoever.

I think that you are suggesting here that the word of a Police Officer must not be trusted. If a Police Officer witnesses an offence being committed and does not happen to have a video camera, magistrate, judge, The Pope, Nelson Mandela or Anthea Turner present at the scene to back up his story, are you suggesting that the evidence of what he saw is not good enough and that the case should not come to court?

Say someone close to you was seriously injured as a result of a hit and run driver. A passing police patrol witnessed the incident and recognised the driver as a persistent disqualified driver. There were no other people present. Would you be satisfied if you were told, "The police saw the incident take place and know who the driver of the car was. Unfortunately, the only witnesses to the incident were police officers. For this reason we don't intend to prosecute Mr Bloggs because we can't trust the police.

The policing system isn't perfect and there are undoubtedly mistakes made. There will even be a few (hopefully very few) corrupt officers and people will inevitably be treated unfairly as a result of their existence. But on the whole I think the police are OK and the alternative of not having them is frightening.

Anyway, this is getting way way off the original request for help from Madmax2

redux

peter999 wrote: »

When it comes to motoring offences, people can be convicted on the word of Police without any proof whatsoever.

It happens every day, magistrates rubber stamping convictions.

tillson wrote: »

I think that you are suggesting here that the word of a Police Officer must not be trusted. If a Police Officer witnesses an offence being committed and does not happen to have a video camera, magistrate, judge, The Pope, Nelson Mandela or Anthea Turner present at the scene to back up his story, are you suggesting that the evidence of what he saw is not good enough and that the case should not come to court?

There is no point starting a different argument here. What peter999 said is correct.

It is even possible to be convicted if the bloke skives off sick to avoid explaining in court why his camera did not have the information he claimed, and he actually said it was wrong. Or why he guessed that the car was a GTI instead of a diesel. Or despite that even the original prosecuting solicitor did not believe it.

tillson

I am going to leave it here. There seems to be quite a lot of unsubstantiated general accusations regarding the integrity of the police going on here. Perhaps the fact that no one can evidence their remarks says it all.

I think the plain fact is that people can't accept being told that they are doing something wrong. And when confronted with the fact rely on the rather tired excuse of the police making it all up.