Speeding, Notice of Intended prosecution 4 months late

jimjames

Supersonos said:

So what's stopping someone simply throwing away their NIP and claiming it never arrived?  Great way to get off paying a speeding fine.

Presumably if that happened then further action would have been taken in the intervening 6 months. The fact that nothing else has been sent in that time might suggest that it was only just posted. If sent in Dec and ignored I would expect further proceedings would have already started by now.

JamoLew

jimjames said:

Supersonos said:

So what's stopping someone simply throwing away their NIP and claiming it never arrived?  Great way to get off paying a speeding fine.

Presumably if that happened then further action would have been taken in the intervening 6 months. The fact that nothing else has been sent in that time might suggest that it was only just posted. If sent in Dec and ignored I would expect further proceedings would have already started by now.

It might have been sent and fallen into the same black hole - hence why ringing the court might be a very good idea for the OP as suggested since proceedings might already be very much underway

OP - you said "details correct as car bought in Oct 2019"

But have you actually,physically checked the V5 or are you assuming ?

The advice given by @TooManyPoints is spot on

IvanDP

Thank you for all your replies, I'll try to answer all the questions.

Offence definitely 24/12/2020
No other correspondence regarding this offence
No court proceedings in my name (either current or pending)
V5 is definitely up to date
No real problems with post as other mail has arrived more or less on time

I have sent the NIP off (properly filled in) with the template letter from Pepipoo.com. 
Just have to wait and see now how things go.

TooManyPoints

Did you check your driving record with the DVLA?
Were you driving at the time?
Do you intend responding to the s172 request promptly?

IvanDP

Checked driving record - OK
Yes, I was driving
S172 already returned

Thank you

ontheroad1970

IvanDP said:

Checked driving record - OK
Yes, I was driving
S172 already returned

Thank you

Ouch!  You've given them a week to enter details in court.  They may or may not take advantage of this - would have been much better to have held off until Monday/Tuesday of next week, so there wasn't a week for them to do so.  They only have to start the action with the court within 6 months.  The date of the 'summons' is not part of the 6 month window.

TooManyPoints

You will now have to wait to see what happens. There are five possibilities:

1. They prosecute you for speeding (which they have until next Thursday to begin)

2. They prosecute you for a s172 offence (which they have until 1st August (not July as I erroneously stated in my earlier post) to begin).

3. They prosecute you for both the above.

4. They miss the date for a speeding prosecution but offer you a fixed penalty for it nonetheless (in the hope you are daft enough to accept it).

5. They do nothing.

Come back when they have informed you of their intentions as you need to take a different approach to each of 1-4. Be particularly careful if they take option 3. As you have now told them you were driving, you could end up with nine points. Note that although they may begin a prosecution by the deadline you may not hear about it for a week or two afterwards. They must issue a "written charge" (to the court) and at the same time issue a "Single Justice Procedure Notice" (to you) which will be your notification of the proceedings.

[Deleted User]

By the way this "enjoy the presumption" is a bit silly. The UK courts service considers a first class letter deemed delivered after 2 working days - this is for everyone so OP can have it deemed delivered 2 days later (obtain free proof of postage though) in case they say it arrived late. It's the same with court papers and so on. Otherwise you simply would end up with people claiming things turned up late or never arrived and avoiding any penalty, you have to draw a line somewhere and 2 days is it.

Civil Procedure Rules 6.14
A claim form served within the United Kingdom in accordance with this Part is deemed to be served on the second business day after completion of the relevant step under rule 7.5(1).

Car_54

Deleted_User said:

By the way this "enjoy the presumption" is a bit silly. The UK courts service considers a first class letter deemed delivered after 2 working days - this is for everyone so OP can have it deemed delivered 2 days later (obtain free proof of postage though) in case they say it arrived late. It's the same with court papers and so on. Otherwise you simply would end up with people claiming things turned up late or never arrived and avoiding any penalty, you have to draw a line somewhere and 2 days is it.

Civil Procedure Rules 6.14
A claim form served within the United Kingdom in accordance with this Part is deemed to be served on the second business day after completion of the relevant step under rule 7.5(1).

The "presumption" of service does not rely on the CPR (which in any case do not apply in criminal cases), but on section  7 of the Interpretation Act 1978.

TooManyPoints

By the way this "enjoy the presumption" is a bit silly. The UK courts service considers a first class letter deemed delivered after 2 working days - this is for everyone so OP can have it deemed delivered 2 days later

It isn’t for everyone in the case of Criminal proceedings (which this is). The privilege arises from the Interpretation Act 1978:

References to service by post.

Where an Act authorises or requires any document to be served by post (whether the expression “serve” or the expression “give” or “send” or any other expression is used) then, unless the contrary intention appears, the service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing, pre-paying and posting a letter containing the document and, unless the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post. 

The prosecuting authority (or the police) enjoy the presumption because the Acts which provide for the documents to be used require them to be “served” on the recipient. The recipient’s response is not covered by the Act in the same way and so the presumption of service cannot be enjoyed. If the police provide proof of posting (for, say, a s172 request) to the court, the recipient has to prove to the court that the document was not served on them (on time or at all, as appropriate) if he is to rely on that as a defence. But that privilege does not apply to the recipient’s response. If the police say they did not receive it they do not have to prove that fact. 

Civil Procedures are not my forte but the CPR you quote relates specifically to Civil Procedure Claim Forms and nothing else. As far as I know, the vast majority of such forms are served by courts.