Speeding fine and SJP

Shepton50

I was caught on the camera at the bottom of the M11 doing 68mph in a 50mph zone.

The inital offer of the fixed penalty was missed and I have now received the Single Justice Procedure notice SJP.

I was going to plead guilty online to avoid going to court ( although I may still have to if they don't accept my plea )

However it was mentioned to me that the police have to start procecution proceedings within 6 months of the offence.

The offence was on 4th September 2023 and my SJP has a posting date of 5th March 2024.

This is 1 day after the 6 months timeframe ?

Can anyone confirm if this is correct and worth me argueing this fact ?

I think the only way I could do this is to plead not guilty on the SJP and go to court, which then may incur more points, bigger charges etc.

Thoughts please.

TadleyBaggie

The posting date is unlikely the date they started the proceedings, what is the date on the actual documents?

Car_54

The police have six months to begin proceedings. It is quite normal for it to take a few days (or even weeks) for you to be notified.

Why do you imagine the court might not accept your guilty plea?

Okell

TadleyBaggie said:

The posting date is unlikely the date they started the proceedings, what is the date on the actual documents?

This  ^^^^^

Shepton50

The SJP has a page with a Certification of Service, Rule 4 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2015.
The date on this is still the 5th March 2024 15:00 hrs

Shepton50

Car_54 said:

The police have six months to begin proceedings. It is quite normal for it to take a few days (or even weeks) for you to be notified.

Why do you imagine the court might not accept your guilty plea?

Because of the speed of 68 in a 50 zone this will make it a band B fine which could have a disqualification of 7 to 28 days and this can only be served in court.
Obviously I would hope they don't do this.

Shepton50

This is the Certificate with the document number removed 

Shepton50

Follow up to the previous post, I have just found that date that you were asking for on the Charge Sheet of the SJP which is the 4th March 2024, which is exactly 6 months from the offence date.
So this means that I will follow the guilty please as originally planned.

Car_54

Shepton50 said:

Car_54 said:

The police have six months to begin proceedings. It is quite normal for it to take a few days (or even weeks) for you to be notified.

Why do you imagine the court might not accept your guilty plea?

Because of the speed of 68 in a 50 zone this will make it a band B fine which could have a disqualification of 7 to 28 days and this can only be served in court.
Obviously I would hope they don't do this.

That speed is very close to the bottom of the band, so a ban is almost unthinkable.

Anyway, they would still accept your guilty plea. You'd only be going to court for sentencing!

TooManyPoints

Just for clarification, the SJ legislation says that to initiate a prosecution the prosecutor must "issue" a written charge and a "Single Justice Procedure Notice" within the six month time limit. It is the issue of these two documents which is used to determine whether the six month limit has been met. As above, they may be posted some time afterwards.

The inital offer of the fixed penalty was missed...

What was the reason for that? The court has the discretion to sentence at the fixed penalty level in some circumstances.

Ganga

Shepton50 said:

I was caught on the camera at the bottom of the M11 doing 68mph in a 50mph zone.

The inital offer of the fixed penalty was missed and I have now received the Single Justice Procedure notice SJP.

I was going to plead guilty online to avoid going to court ( although I may still have to if they don't accept my plea )

However it was mentioned to me that the police have to start procecution proceedings within 6 months of the offence.

The offence was on 4th September 2023 and my SJP has a posting date of 5th March 2024.

This is 1 day after the 6 months timeframe ?

Can anyone confirm if this is correct and worth me argueing this fact ?

I think the only way I could do this is to plead not guilty on the SJP and go to court, which then may incur more points, bigger charges etc.

Thoughts please.

This takes me back ,we went down the M11 in my boss,s BMW M3 Motorsport ,i was driving and doing well over 110 miles an hour ,this was in the days before they took your licence off you for doing over 100 , i am not the type who speeds anyway ( never had a conviction in over 55 years driving ) but never got to drive performance type cars anyway apart from this time ,i know not clever but it was wonderful at the time to pass other cars as if they were dawdling along , never to be repeated.