Drive any car - swift insurance.

Tilt

Rover_Driver wrote: »

That is only one condition of s. 165A, Both have to be satisfied.

From the earlier case in post 18:

'The Court of Appeal found that because the driver had produced evidence that showed he was insured - a certificate allowing DOC with the owner's permission and a letter showing that permission - the police had no power of seizure regardless of any reasons they had to suspect the certificate wasn't valid, including a statement (incorrect as it turned out) from the insurers themselves'

So even if the police do have reasonable grounds to suspect that a vehicle is being used without insurance, they have no power to seize the vehicle if evidence, - a certificate of insurance - is produced, regardless of their suspicions.

Ok, Ok I give up. You carry on believing that dross but I know 150% that your interpretations are wrong.

While we have been having this 'debate' over the last few days I have been talking about it to a police sergeant traffic officer friend of mine in depth and he explained what they can act upon and what they cannot in such circumstances. He quoted both sec 165a and sec 143 and explained that as far as he is concerned, they will seize a car unless the driver can adequately provide evidence that he/she is insured to drive that vehicle. They DO NOT take a certificate at face value unless the car is on the MIB database because of the very reasons I have stated throughout this thread; in case the insurance policy has been cancelled. But he did say that they will always exhaust every avenue of enquiry and give the driver every chance to come up with the relevant evidence.

Sorry guys, but with respect I would rather take the word from a professional police officer in a face to face conversation than from the 'experts' on here.

But i'll tell you what i'll do... I will leave it at that because you will not change my mind and obviously I won't change yours. I will carry on making sure I am always insured which, as a driver, is one of my responsibilities.


:hello:

Wig

But they will still seize it -if they want to- and there's nothing you can do to stop them, only after-the-fact sue to get your money back.

Tilt

Wig wrote: »

But they will still seize it -if they want to- and there's nothing you can do to stop them, only after-the-fact sue to get your money back.

:j:j:j:T:T:T:j:j:j

Rover_Driver

Tilt wrote: »

While we have been having this 'debate' over the last few days I have been talking about it to a police sergeant traffic officer friend of mine in depth and he explained what they can act upon and what they cannot in such circumstances. He quoted both sec 165a and sec 143 and explained that as far as he is concerned, they will seize a car unless the driver can adequately provide evidence that he/she is insured to drive that vehicle.

It is not interpretation, it is fact, in black and white, which has been shown in this thread several times by several people, which you don't seem to understand.

No one is saying what the police would or would not do, only what they have the power to do, if they are not concerned about abusing that power and don't comply with the legislation, there is not a lot we can do about it - apart from, as Wig has said, sue them when they do.

The court case in post 18 is exactly the same circumstances that your police sergeant friend could find himself in - an insurance certificate was produced, so there was no power to seize the vehicle, regardles of the police suspicions, and the seizure was unlawful.

Joe_Horner

Tilt, where you seem to be getting mislead is in the meaning of "evidence" as far as the legal system is concerned. Evidence is anything that appears to relate to the matter at hand, whether or not it subsequently turns out to be relevant. That's why, at a crime scene, everything possible will be collected / recorded - until it proves to be irrelevant it IS evidence.

Essentially, the job of the police is to collect evidence, the job of the courts is to assess that evidence and decide whether or not someone is guilty as charged.

Note that, if someone is taken to court, the police have to make ALL the evidence they've collected available to the defence regardless of whether they believe it's relevant or not because they do NOT have any power anywhere to decide relevance - if something appears to relate to the matter in hand, it is evidence until a court decides that it isn't. That's one of the fundamental safeguards in our legal system to help prevent the police from "fitting people up".

Exactly the same applies here:

If a certificate is produced that appears (within itself) to grant cover in the circumstances then it IS evidence and the driver has, therefore, "produced evidence". A DOC certificate, possibly along with confirmation from the owner that you have permission to drive, is evidence that you have cover. If that evidence later turns out to be flawed then that's a matter for the courts, not for the police, to decide. Otherwise you have the police as "judge, jury and executioner", which is a situation our legal system has strived for centuries to avoid.

In the case quoted, the fact that the cover turned out to be valid was neither here nor there because a decision to justify seizure must rest on the situation at the time of the stop. The legality of a seizure can't be justified by something that comes to light after the event! As soon as evidence (in the form of a certificate that appears to provide cover) is produced, the police have no power to disbelieve that evidence in order to justify seizure even if they have other evidence that suggests otherwise. If they do then they're crossing the line from investigation to judging one piece of evidence against another and that is categorically a matter for the courts, not for them.

That was the position of the lead judgement, and Burnton's somewhat hard-line comments only served to obfuscate that point, not to invalidate it.

The fact that a police officer believes otherwise isn't relevant at all to the legal situation incidentally. Every time someone is found "not guilty" by a court is a time that the police have got the legal situation wrong!

thenudeone

Wig wrote: »

But they will still seize it -if they want to- and there's nothing you can do to stop them, only after-the-fact sue to get your money back.

I think that's the one point that we can probably all agree on.;)

Joe_Horner

thenudeone wrote: »

I think that's the one point that we can probably all agree on.;)

Yep :rotfl:

Although, (assuming you know you're legal) politely warning them at the time that they shouldn't be doing it and explaining why doesn't hurt your chances when it does go to court