surely this isnt right...

Stooby2

inacrisis wrote:

Am i able top ring the court Tuesday? There is no chance of me getting it off work?

If it was me, I'd take the day off, ring in sick, say I was kidnapped, there'd been an earthquake, whatever.

it's £885 plus points and the chance your licence could be revoked - the police can seize your car if they stop you driving under those conditions. Get your a**e to the court pronto.

inacrisis

I don't have to pay insurance add that is included with my car so doesn't bother me, what bothers me is that I feel I am forced to be found guilty when they have no evidence it was me. Also the fact I never had the opportunity to go to court as I want in the country, I don't have the type of job where I can just ring in sick, I am a dr. I will ring the court on Tuesday and see what I can do. Will also try that other forum. Thanks for the help.

And I genuinely can't remember who was driving so I don't see how you can be penalised for this, ten weeks to send a letter to me is an extortionate amount of time.

Johnmcl7

You are guilty of the offence by your own admission and they do have the evidence to prove you were sent the Section 172 notice and that you failed to provide the requested driver details - the speeding is now irrelevant as that's not what you've been taken to court for.

The fact you couldn't go to court doesn't matter either because as has been mentioned several times now, when you make the statutory declaration it will reset the process back to the summons stage which will mean effectively the first court case did not happen. However ringing the court is not going to be sufficient, if it's not going to be convenient to go to the court it may be easier to arrange to make the stat dec through a solicitor or similar.

It wasn't ten weeks to send the letter, the first letter in the chain (the NIP) must be sent to the registered keeper within 14 days (bar any issues such as a recent change of owner, address change etc.) which in your case is likely a lease company and possibly another S172 request to your company that leases the vehicle. Each one has 30 days to reply which can lengthen the time it takes to reach the eventual driver. That can of course form part of your defence although you will be expected to have taken further steps to try and establish the driver.

As for your perceived injustice of the charge, to be blunt complaining about it isn't to help you - instead you need to focus your efforts on getting the statutory declaration made and preparing your defence. If the CPS were not able to prosecute failure to furnish offences then clearly the entire motoring legal system would collapse as drivers could just forget who was driving. Those who fail to provide details are instead summoned to court where they are given the chance to defend the charge, they're not automatically penalised without any chance to defend themselves.

John

Aretnap

The statutory declaration can be made within 21 days of your becoming aware of the conviction (in theory you can make one later than that, although the court is not be obliged to accept it more than 3 weeks afer you learn of the conviction). You don't necessarily have to do it first thing on Tuesday morning.

inacrisis

The.main.problem I find in this site is people don't actually read.responses, I never said it.took them ten weeks to send a letter, I said it took them ten weeks to send it to Me, fair enough they had to send it to the lease company but I might ask the judge if he can remember what he was doing term weeks ago to the day....I'm guessing he can't. Also I'm sure on the letter it said if I can't supply details of the driver it will go to court and they will decide, nothing about being prosecuted and treated like a criminal. I will ring tomorrow and pay the fine and then ask them how I can go about defending myself in this. To me if the judge can't remember what he was doing ten weeks ago on guessing the case will just be thrown out ...but on guessing not.

prowla

I think that the authorities should have to prove who was driving, and not target the leaseholder.

If it was a police officer who had stopped the car then there would be no question, but evidently the automated system they have chosen to use is flawed and is thus incapable of doing the job of being a proxy police officer.

Unless the principle of being innocent until proven guilty applies to everything else except pictures from sub-standard cameras.

I've seen two camera shots of cars - one of somebody speeding, and one of someone driving through a restricted route, and in both cases the driver could be clearly identified.

Rover_Driver

inacrisis wrote: »

. I will ring tomorrow and pay the fine and then ask them how I can go about defending myself in this. To me if the judge can't remember what he was doing ten weeks ago on guessing the case will just be thrown out ...but on guessing not.

You need to arrange to make the statutory declaration to re-open the case, there is a defence that you could not, with reasonable diligence, identify the driver - section 172 (4), Road Traffic Act 1988.

If the court accept that you have used reasonable diligence, you will be found not guilty - as you say, it was 10 weeks ago, but the court may ask what other ways/enquiries you have used to try to identify the driver.

Paradigm

Rover_Driver wrote: »

You need to arrange to make the statutory declaration to re-open the case, there is a defence that you could not, with reasonable diligence, identify the driver - section 172 (4), Road Traffic Act 1988.

If the court accept that you have used reasonable diligence, you will be found not guilty - as you say, it was 10 weeks ago, but the court may ask what other ways/enquiries you have used to try to identify the driver.

Reasonable diligence.... Credit/debit card statements for the day & time in question? Receipts for fuel etc? Mobile phone bills maybe?

Was it a weekday? Who was at work & couldn't possibly have been driving? Who wasn't & could? (or vice versa)

Weekend... was anyone at a sporting event that would rule them in or out? Wedding? Christening?

After the Sat Dec the case will be heard & you will have to prove that you have done everything in your power to try & identify the driver, just saying "it was 10 weeks ago, I can't remember" won't wash I'm afraid.

To be honest asking the Judge (it will be a magistrate btw) if he can remember 10 weeks ago isn't going to put you on his/her friends list

ETA: Given the facts of your case, if you can ID the driver the "prosecution" may well accept a guilty for the speeding offence & drop the "failure to furnish" charge.

Johnmcl7

inacrisis wrote: »

The.main.problem I find in this site is people don't actually read.responses, I never said it.took them ten weeks to send a letter, I said it took them ten weeks to send it to Me, fair enough they had to send it to the lease company but I might ask the judge if he can remember what he was doing term weeks ago to the day....I'm guessing he can't. Also I'm sure on the letter it said if I can't supply details of the driver it will go to court and they will decide, nothing about being prosecuted and treated like a criminal. I will ring tomorrow and pay the fine and then ask them how I can go about defending myself in this. To me if the judge can't remember what he was doing ten weeks ago on guessing the case will just be thrown out ...but on guessing not.

I've read your responses but unfortunately you don't seem to be reading any of mine because I've had to repeat myself many times already and you still don't seem to be taking anything in. The court prosecuted you in your absence which given the nature of the offence is understandable because there is a straight forward way to get this reversed.

Do not pay the fine if you want to defend the conviction - the purpose of the stat dec is to overturn the conviction and revert it back to the summons stage. The time taken for the S172 notice to reach is certainly in your favour but you'll likely need more than to convince the magistrates that you were unable to provide the driver information. Complaining about your perceived injustice of the system and similar is likely to see you hit with a larger fine and higher costs (depending on your income) so you need to forget that and sort out your defence - the court have correctly followed the legal process, you need to do the same.

John

Paradigm

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

I've read your responses but unfortunately you don't seem to be reading any of mine because I've had to repeat myself many times already and you still don't seem to be taking anything in. The court prosecuted you in your absence which given the nature of the offence is understandable because there is a straight forward way to get this reversed.

Do not pay the fine if you want to defend the conviction - the purpose of the stat dec is to overturn the conviction and revert it back to the summons stage. The time taken for the S172 notice to reach is certainly in your favour but you'll likely need more than to convince the magistrates that you were unable to provide the driver information. Complaining about your perceived injustice of the system and similar is likely to see you hit with a larger fine and higher costs (depending on your income) so you need to forget that and sort out your defence - the court have correctly followed the legal process, you need to do the same.

John

Pepipoo having the same problem http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=78799