Received a SJPN today out of nowhere and unsure of how to proceed.

PirateAndy

So yes, I came back from work today to a large white letter from the Fixed Pentalty Unit stating I was speeding in a 30mph area from back in June of this year.

I'm not necessarily disputing I was speeding as I may have done, I don't know, because this is the first I've heard of it. However, Northumbria Police state they've sent me letters requesting who was the driver and I've never received anything until today on this. I've not moved house during the timeframe covered by the document I've received to now. So, I'm at a loss as to how I've not received up to two letters asking for further info from me.

Also, I don't know if this is standard but there is no evidence other than a witness statement from someone in Northumbria Police about sending me letters.

Not sure what to do on this as now they are looking to do me for speeding and failing to identify the driver. Which I would've done if I'd actually received the letters.

I've gone part way through the online.plea website to see if the URN number provided is genuine and it seems to be. 

So any advice would be good right about now, thanks.

Car_54

Are you the Registered Keeper of the vehicle? I.e. you have the V5C (logbook) in your possession?

If so, are the name and address details correct, and were they correct at the time of the alleged speeding offence?

Finally, were you the driver at the time?

PirateAndy

Car_54 said:

Are you the Registered Keeper of the vehicle? I.e. you have the V5C (logbook) in your possession?

If so, are the name and address details correct, and were they correct at the time of the alleged speeding offence?

Finally, were you the driver at the time?

V5C is up to date I just checked. I moved back in Dec 2024 but have had a Post Office Forwarding of Mail thing set up so all stray mail gets redirected to my new house.

Provisionally: I am the only driver of my vehicle. No one else has access... But I also don't have access to any footage or images of the alleged offense to see if it was indeed my vehicle or someone spoofing my plates.

Keep_pedalling

You should go over to the FTLA forum, they deal with criminal cases, but don’t post until you have had a good read of the Read me first pinned thread. 

https://www.ftla.uk/speeding-and-other-criminal-offences/

PirateAndy

Further to this I have read on a couple of forums that pleading not guilty and explaining I am willing to change my plea to the speeding to guilty if they drop the failure to ID the driver is dropped works more often than not. Is that true.

I probably was caught speeding in the grand scheme of things, I will say fair play to that one. I likely have no choice but to plead guilty to that part, but I'd rather not be done for something I didn't even know about until about an hour ago if I can at all help it.

So unless anyone has a better idea I'm going to initially plead not guilty to both charges and then when it askd for the reasons I am intending to write the following:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Offense 1: The Speeding
I am willing to plead guilty to this offense if the charge for the second offense of failing to give information is dropped. I outline the reasons for this more fully in my reply to the second offense. Please see below:

Offense 2: Failure to ID driver
I have not received any correspondence regarding the speeding offense until today 24/12/2025 with the reciept of the SJPN with case No.: ###########. My V5C is up to date with my current address, and though I moved house in Dec of 2024 I have had a Royal Mail Redirection Order set up to receive any correspondence that may mistakenly be sent to the old address. Therefore I have not seen any of the evidence provided in the original NIP as I never received the original NIP. If I had done, I would've complied with the request to identify the driver of the vehicle at the time of the original offense without delay.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep_pedalling

Don't Don’t do anything without first asking over at the forum I gave a link to in my previous post.

user1977

Also, I would spell “offence” correctly….

TooManyPoints

You near enough have it right but you don't need to go into so much detail.

You have two choices: 

Option 1: You can defend both the speeding and the FtP charges on the basis that you did not receive the request. The speeding charge is a non-starter as they have no evidence you were driving (that comes from the response that you have been charged with failing to provide).

The FtP charge is a bit more tricky. You first have to be sure that (a) if you are the RK your details were shown correctly registered with the DVLA at the time of the offence. The police have only to prove to the court’s satisfaction that they posted the request, correctly addressed (in accordance with the details they have obtained from the DVLA) to you. It is then deemed served on you two working days later unless it can be proved otherwise. The burden of that proof rests with you and it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative. If it was easy everybody would turn up and simply say “Didn’t receive it, guv.”

The upside of this strategy is that if you succeed you walk away with your licence and wallet intact. The downside is that if you are convicted you face a heavy fine and costs (no change from £1k for most people), six points and an insurance-crippling endorsement code (MS90) which will see your premiums rocket for up to five years.

Option 2: You can offer to do a “deal” with the prosecution. You can offer to plead guilty to speeding on the condition that the FtP charge is dropped. This involves responding to the SJPN by pleading Not Guilty to both charges. A court appearance will probably then be arranged (though in some areas they allow the deal to be completed by post). At that appearance, you must agree with the prosecutor to plead guilty to speeding but only on the condition that the FtP charge is dropped.

This deal is almost without exception accepted. It is a process adopted in courts every day and is well known to all court users (prosecutors, Magistrates and their legal advisors). Although it does not avoid a speeding conviction, it avoids the far more damaging conviction for FtP.

If you are very cheeky, and providing your speed was within the range where a fixed penalty (FP) would have been offered, you can ask the court to sentence you at the FP level (£100 and three points). They have guidance which allows them to do so:

"Where a penalty notice could not be offered or taken up for reasons unconnected with the offence itself, such as administrative difficulties outside the control of the offender, the starting point should be a fine equivalent to the amount of the penalty and no order of costs should be imposed. The offender should not be disadvantaged by the unavailability of the penalty notice in these circumstances."

These were “administrative difficulties” and provided the police had the correct details for you, they were outside your control. That request may or may not be successful, but don’t ask, won’t get!

If you want to take this option, you should return the SJPN pleading Not Guilty to both charges. In the “reasons for Not Guilty plea” section you should state that you are willing to plead guilty to speeding if, and only if the FtP charge is dropped.

If the court requires you to appear in person to do the deal, you will be informed and offered a date to attend court. You can then make the offer in person. If the prosecutor or the Magistrates want any further explanation they will ask you. If you are asked to attend court come back here and I'll advise you how best to approach this.

I see you've posted his on FTLA. I post on that forum but I won't; reply there as it would be exactly the same as here!, I would be very surprised if you received any substantially different advice.

GDB2222

user1977 said:

Also, I would spell “offence” correctly….

I noticed the spelling error, but I didn’t mention it, as I didn’t want to cause offence.

PirateAndy

GDB2222 said:

user1977 said:

Also, I would spell “offence” correctly….

I noticed the spelling error, but I didn’t mention it, as I didn’t want to cause offence.

Blame my auto correct for that one.

PirateAndy

TooManyPoints said:

You near enough have it right but you don't need to go into so much detail.

You have two choices: 

Option 1: You can defend both the speeding and the FtP charges on the basis that you did not receive the request. The speeding charge is a non-starter as they have no evidence you were driving (that comes from the response that you have been charged with failing to provide).

The FtP charge is a bit more tricky. You first have to be sure that (a) if you are the RK your details were shown correctly registered with the DVLA at the time of the offence. The police have only to prove to the court’s satisfaction that they posted the request, correctly addressed (in accordance with the details they have obtained from the DVLA) to you. It is then deemed served on you two working days later unless it can be proved otherwise. The burden of that proof rests with you and it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative. If it was easy everybody would turn up and simply say “Didn’t receive it, guv.”

The upside of this strategy is that if you succeed you walk away with your licence and wallet intact. The downside is that if you are convicted you face a heavy fine and costs (no change from £1k for most people), six points and an insurance-crippling endorsement code (MS90) which will see your premiums rocket for up to five years.

Option 2: You can offer to do a “deal” with the prosecution. You can offer to plead guilty to speeding on the condition that the FtP charge is dropped. This involves responding to the SJPN by pleading Not Guilty to both charges. A court appearance will probably then be arranged (though in some areas they allow the deal to be completed by post). At that appearance, you must agree with the prosecutor to plead guilty to speeding but only on the condition that the FtP charge is dropped.

This deal is almost without exception accepted. It is a process adopted in courts every day and is well known to all court users (prosecutors, Magistrates and their legal advisors). Although it does not avoid a speeding conviction, it avoids the far more damaging conviction for FtP.

If you are very cheeky, and providing your speed was within the range where a fixed penalty (FP) would have been offered, you can ask the court to sentence you at the FP level (£100 and three points). They have guidance which allows them to do so:

"Where a penalty notice could not be offered or taken up for reasons unconnected with the offence itself, such as administrative difficulties outside the control of the offender, the starting point should be a fine equivalent to the amount of the penalty and no order of costs should be imposed. The offender should not be disadvantaged by the unavailability of the penalty notice in these circumstances."

These were “administrative difficulties” and provided the police had the correct details for you, they were outside your control. That request may or may not be successful, but don’t ask, won’t get!

If you want to take this option, you should return the SJPN pleading Not Guilty to both charges. In the “reasons for Not Guilty plea” section you should state that you are willing to plead guilty to speeding if, and only if the FtP charge is dropped.

If the court requires you to appear in person to do the deal, you will be informed and offered a date to attend court. You can then make the offer in person. If the prosecutor or the Magistrates want any further explanation they will ask you. If you are asked to attend court come back here and I'll advise you how best to approach this.

I see you've posted his on FTLA. I post on that forum but I won't; reply there as it would be exactly the same as here!, I would be very surprised if you received any substantially different advice.

I've just looked it up on the DVLA:

• Date of last V5C (logbook) issued: 14 December 2024

This was 2 weeks after I moved into my new house. So they had the correct address from the start. Seems the only safe option here is to cop to the speeding and ask for the original FP of £100 with 3 points.

That is fair enough as thinking back I the sneaky buggers were just over the crest of a hill and I saw them too late. I'm usually really careful with my speed limits, but that day it just got away from me, clearly.

I can live with £100 and 3 points... or a speed awareness course if they offer one. I just cannot stand the idea of being convicted of FtP when I had absolutely no control over the postal system screwing up. That does not seem fair to me at all.