Speeding not heard back. Should I be worried

AndyMc.....

ivington wrote: »

Ok, so I've read through the court papers in detail and in particular the 'Process Timeline'. It does now appear that they did receive my acceptance but have decided to go through the court process because of:


'Insufficient time to process COFPN'


The original offence date was 08/01/2018 which would take things pretty close to (if not over) 6 months if they sent me out a 28 days to pay option.


The other offence took place on the 23/01/2018 which still allows time with 28 days to pay to fall inside the 6 months.


So now I understand why I have received the court option, though it still feels somewhat harsh. It was never my intention to avoid paying and the reason the car was not put in my name was the fault of the previous owner and not mine. Obviously I accept responsibility for the speeding, though, but feel a little hard done by because this is now going to cost more than it could have. If I had been aware of the 6 months time limit I would have sent them off immediately, but I was going away soon after and was worried that I could make things worse if something arrived on my doormat whilst I was away which required my immediate attention, so decided to leave it a bit later in the knowledge that I would be guaranteed to have returned before anything came back in the post.


Just a catalogue of events that has added up to an expensive conclusion.

You’re not blame free on that one though are you?

ivington

OK don't know what happened as I posted here yesterday, but it seems to have not shown up for some reason.


What I posted was to do with the more detailed reading of the speeding that was going to court. Specifically, it was regarding why this has gone to court and the reasons why Essex Police.


As others have mentioned here, the main reason has been posted as 'Insufficient time to process COFPN'. Basically it appears that there is a time limit. Is it 6 months to process a speeding offence? And according to the officer who processed this offence, there was insufficient time to process as a FPN.


Obviously I'm not understanding as to how they make such a decision. The original offence was on the 08/01/2018, and they received my acceptance of liability on the 25/05/2018, which still left about 6 weeks before the 6 months would have been up.


Because there were 2 offences, I don't know if that would have affected the decision in this case. Are Essex Police, or indeed any police authority, able to process 2 offences concurrently (especially with regard to processing my drivers licence). Which would have allowed enough time for me to pay up on both inside 6 months. Indeed the other FPN allowing me 28 days to pay, was dated 01/06/2018 and was for the later offence on the 23/01/2018. But if it had been for the earlier offence it would still have allowed me time inside the 6 months to have been able to pay as the 28 days would have only taken the offence up to the 29/06/2018.


Or do they have to process 1 and then the other which obviously would not have allowed sufficient time. Especially with regard to me sending them my driving licence as mentioned previously. They would have needed this twice. Once for each offence.


However, if they had processed these in reverse. With the 08/01/2018 being the FPN, then would there still have been insufficient time to process the 23/012018 offence?


Anyway, that's how things are as I am reading it. If anyone could shed more light on this it would be much appreciated.

ivington

Sorry for posting the same info twice. I didn't see my post from yesterday, but now I can. Anyway, I'll leave both as I did add additional info in the 2nd post.

ivington

You!!!8217;re not blame free on that one though are you?


Sorry, other than for the original offences which I 100% admit blame for, in what other way do you mean? Naïve perhaps. Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing, but the guy who sold me the car as I eventually realized, had no intention of sending in the log book because he did not have the most up to date version of it. If you really want me to go into every exact detail of what took place when I bought the car and to the whys and wherefores of how I ended up with no log book until over 4 months after the purchase I can, but the 1 thing I am pretty sure of is the fact that the slip he gave me was not from the latest version of the log book. And the reason I know this is because I tried to get it put into my name online when I realized that I was unlikely to receive it. It was then that I was unable to do so because the code on the log book slip that I had was not the correct one and so it would not let me do so.


It wasn't until I was able to look into why this was happening that I came to the conclusion above.

AndyMc.....

The reason it!!!8217;s going straight to court is once they issue a conditional offer of a fixed penalty notice you have 28 days to comply. If you reject it on the 28th it only gives them two weeks to lay the information before a court to get you charged.

Next time you buy a car don!!!8217;t leave it four months to chase the log book.

ivington

Well actually I'd say the best thing to do is to not get caught speeding. Anyway, thanks for everybody's help and advice. Yes I've certainly learned some stuff I didn't know about previously, but hopefully I won't have to put that knowledge into practice ever again.