DVLA-Court £660 6 points, (DVLA MS90) I was not at address of Court letter!

sheramber

What is the date on the letter?   Has it been lying in your house for days/weeks?

Freecall

You are mixing up issues here and making things sound very complicated.

Firstly, you didn't get the notice (for whatever reason) so go to court and make a SD to that effect (assuming you are still within 28 days of becoming aware).

That will set aside the conviction of which you were unaware.

Secondly, the prosecution will then immediately prosecute you for the speeding.   

You will plead guilty (you are not really going to trial for a 38 mph in a 30 mph zone are you?).  You will then receive a Band A fine and 3 points.

QED

Manxman_in_exile

Freecall said:

You are mixing up issues here and making things sound very complicated.

Firstly, you didn't get the notice (for whatever reason) so go to court and make a SD to that effect (assuming you are still within 28 days of becoming aware).

That will set aside the conviction of which you were unaware.

Secondly, the prosecution will then immediately prosecute you for the speeding.   

You will plead guilty (you are not really going to trial for a 38 mph in a 30 mph zone are you?).  You will then receive a Band A fine and 3 points.

QED

I agree that the statutory declaration will set aside the MS90 conviction - for now - but it's not possible to give advice about any speeding charge, is it, without more info from the OP?

Firstly, the OP has not mentioned anything about a speeding charge, only that she's been convicted of failing to identify the driver.  That conviction sounds right as the OP admits she never received the request to name the driver, so she never responded, therefore she was convicted of that offence.  The OP makes no mention of being charged with speeding or of being convicted of speeding.  (Difficult to see how she could have been convicted of speeding as the court would have no evidence of who was driving at the time of the offence).

I assume, because the OP  has not mentioned any speeding charge, that there isn't a speeding charge and that that is probably because the speeding has timed out.  If so, there isn't a speeding charge for the OP to plead guilty to.

(NB - after the OP's stat dec has been heard, the failure to identify charge will probably be resurrected and the OP asked to plead to that charge.  Whether they plead guitly or not depends on whether they have a defence.  I'm not commenting on whether they have a defence)

In any event, an accused should probably never plead guilty to the underlying speeding charge when a failure to identify charge is also involved.  They are often charged together and in that case the usual advice is to do a plea bargain with the prosecution by initially pleading not guilty to both charges, but at court offering to plead guilty to the speeding, if and only if, the prosecution will drop the failure to identify charge.  That enables the driver to get away with probably 3 points (speeding) rather than 6 (failure to identify) or possibly even 9 (both offences).

The difficulty for the OP here is that there doesn't appear to be a speeding charge to plea bargain with.  When the prosecution continue to pursue the failure to identify charge after the OP's statutory declaration (which the prosecution will certainly do) the OP could ask the prosecution if it's still possible to plead to the original speeding charge in return for them dropping the failing to identify, but I suspect the prosecution would probably reject that offer on the grounds that the speeding offence has timed out and is not on the charge sheet.  But it still might be worth trying...

Unless the OP has a viable defence to the failure to identify, they are probably stuck with 6 points and a fine...

[EDIT:  The above mostly assumes the OP has only been charged with failure to identify and that there is no speeding charge.  If there is a speeding charge, they may still be able to do the suggested plea bargain

And I agree go to Pepipoo for best advice]

Manxman_in_exile

T.T.D said:

...

The prosecution will not plea bargain with you this isn’t America. 

...

This may not be America, but it is almost always possible to "plea bargain" speeding and failing to identify pleas when dual charged.

ontheroad1970

sheramber said:

What is the date on the letter?   Has it been lying in your house for days/weeks?

It's not relevant for the purposes of getting a SD.  Just needs  to be within 21 days of becoming aware.

TooManyPoints

Firstly, you didn't get the notice (for whatever reason) so go to court and make a SD to that effect (assuming you are still within 28 21 days of becoming aware).

Fixed that for you. As an aside, applying to make an SD beyond 21 days does not mean it will not be heard. The court may (and usually will) hear an SD "out-of-time" provided there is a valid reason for the delay.

Manxman has explained the situation perfectly and has given the same advice as was provided on Pepipoo (along with answers to 22 specific questions the OP asked). The only thing I do not quite concur with is his pessimism for bargaining to plead guilty to an out-of time speeding charge. We don't know, as far as I can tell from both here and the posts on Pepipoo, whether or not the OP was "dual charged." She was convicted of failing to provide driver's details because that is the only charge which would succeed in her absence but it is quite unusual to not have the speeding charge raised at the same time as the FtP. Even if it was not, most prosecutors are usually willing to raise an out-of-time charge to speeding in these circumstances.

Defending the FtP charge will be difficult. There is a statutory defence which says a defendant shall not be guilty (of failing to provide the driver's details) if it was not reasonably practical to do so. An argument could be put forward that it was not reasonably practical to respond to a request that was not received. However, the case of Whiteside v DPP addresses such a defence and the High Court ruled that where the defendant had contributed to the failure for the request to be received by him, that defence should not succeed. So the best the OP can hope for, I believe, is the usual "plea bargain."

Manxman_in_exile

TooManyPoints said:

Firstly, you didn't get the notice (for whatever reason) so go to court and make a SD to that effect (assuming you are still within 28 21 days of becoming aware).

...The only thing I do not quite concur with is his pessimism for bargaining to plead guilty to an out-of time speeding charge. We don't know, as far as I can tell from both here and the posts on Pepipoo, whether or not the OP was "dual charged." She was convicted of failing to provide driver's details because that is the only charge which would succeed in her absence but it is quite unusual to not have the speeding charge raised at the same time as the FtP. Even if it was not, most prosecutors are usually willing to raise an out-of-time charge to speeding in these circumstances.

...

Yeah.  I did wonder if perhaps I'd assumed too much there, which is why I tagged the edit on at the end.

The OP says she was only away from the property for 5 months, but the only paperwork she mentions is a letter saying she'd been convicted of failing to identify.  If I were her I'd look through the backlog of mail again to see if I'd originally been dual charged with both failing to id AND speeding.  If both she can probably be resonably confident of doing a plea bargain after she does the stat dec.

And as you say, even if not dual charged, still worth asking...