13 mile per hour 1 second over the line £790 fine and 3 points

HO87

The £790 sounds steep but I suspect it is made up of a fine plus court costs and the inevitable victim levy. Let's try therefore try to keep things in perspective.

The offence is one of "strict liability" that is, the offence is committed as soon as any part of a vehicle passes over the white line when the traffic light is at red. There are no if's or but's - there is no necessity that the prosecution prove that the driver concerned did so knowingly and attempting to defend such an allegation is only going to succeed if one shows the camera system failed, that the light timings were awry or that one wasn't driving the vehicle.

One also suspects that the OP pleaded not guilty (they use the word "defence" rather than mitigation) and this will have ramped up the court costs distorting the total figure. Given the circumstances the OP themselves describe if they did indeed plead not guilty then they were not well advised.

All fines are now income based and without knowing what proportion of the £790 was costs and the OP's income (and I am NOT suggesting they disclose it) it is difficult to suggest whether it was excessive or not. The sentencing guidelines suggest that the starting point for a fine be in the range of 25-75% of the offenders "relevant weekly income" (i.e. gross weekly income minus tax and NI only). However, this assumes no aggravating factors, such as the prevailing conditions and an assessment of the seriousness of the offence, and that the OP was a first time offender.

Court costs will have been determined by the number of previous hearings (case management, plea and directions etc) there have been and whether any prosecution witnesses were required to attend at any trial. They can quickly mount up.

For this reason unless there was clear and conclusive evidence of a failure of the camera, I would always recommend that a driver accept a FPN if offered. A salutary lesson to us all I would suggest.

Without knowing what camera system was used it is difficult to be precise but the 13 mph was the speed of the OP's vehicle as it passed over the line. The 1 second that is being talked about is the time the vehicle passed over the line after the lights turned to red and is not a measure of how long the vehicle continued at that speed. To put this in proportion that is the OP's vehicle passed over the line some 4 seconds after the amber light was shown (The amber-only phase must be 3 seconds - + or - 0.25 seconds). This is part of what the court would have used in their assessment of the seriousness of the offence.