Nightmare situation - Please help

[clarkey]

I would get some really good legal advice too. Here are the sentencing guidelines for failure to provide a sample:

Failure to provide but has an honest excuse (not sure that applies here) - band C fine, 12 to 16 month disqualification
Deliberate refusal (could apply here) - community order, band C fine, 17 to 28 month disqualification
Deliberate refusal with evidence of serious impairment (certainly applies here) - 12 week custody (starting point), up to high level community order and 26 weeks custody, 29 to 36 month ban.

So I reckon you are looking at a low point of 12 weeks in prison and 29 month ban, if it is a first offence.

Aggravating factors:
Unacceptable standard of driving (such as crashing into a kerb?)
Obvious state of intoxication (such as not actively deciding to drive?)
Factor indicating greater degree of harm:
Involved in accident (oops)
Factors reducing culpability:
Genuinely tried to provide a sample (did you?)

Good news, the maximum is a level 5 fine and 6 months in prison for a first offence.
Bad news, the minimum looks like a band 3 fine, 12 weeks in prison and 29 month ban.

I can't see that having a spiked drink offers any defence for failure to provide. Being clearly pissed and having an accident clearly aggravates the offence though....

Best of luck.

[clarkey]

JustinP1 said:

I'm not sure anyone can accurately state what they will do when they are under the influence of unknown drugs they do not know they have been administered with.

For example, shouting 'The Mars bars with sharks teeth that are chasing you aren't real!' to someone who is tripping on LSD won't make them snap out of it and behave like a normal person.

No, but it might cause the police to investigate what had been taken - what happened after the accident, and before refusing the sample? Did it run away, try to argue he wasn't driving? Or call the police and patiently wait for them to arrive? Were there other signs of being affected by drugs? I don't think we know some of the important details.

[agtlaw]

The point about it not being a drink driving case was made a while ago. Absent a procedural defect or proof of a 'reasonable excuse' very likely he has no defence. Footage at the police station will probably be determinative of the case.

[JustinP1]

clarkey said:

JustinP1 said:

I'm not sure anyone can accurately state what they will do when they are under the influence of unknown drugs they do not know they have been administered with.

For example, shouting 'The Mars bars with sharks teeth that are chasing you aren't real!' to someone who is tripping on LSD won't make them snap out of it and behave like a normal person.

No, but it might cause the police to investigate what had been taken - what happened after the accident, and before refusing the sample? Did it run away, try to argue he wasn't driving? Or call the police and patiently wait for them to arrive? Were there other signs of being affected by drugs? I don't think we know some of the important details.

Yes I totally agree.

There's either one of two things going on here:

1) The OP had one too many drinks, and at the end of the night risked driving home and got unlucky. First time in trouble with the police, he panics and thinks refusal for the breath test will save him. To cover his ass, he invents the spiking story.

2) The OP had no intention of ever driving home, and genuinely has an 'episode' where he has no idea what he was doing getting into his car, or at the police station.


Looking at the OP's story, I have to say it smells like Billingsgate Market at 5pm on a hot August afternoon.

The turns of phrase such as remembering details such as walking home whilst seemingly bumping into his car, and being certain that the JD was the last drink, whilst all the time having no recollection of the night seems a bit fortuitous and constructed.

That said, you can't infer his guilt based upon that as some people are just not very good in explaining what happened. Hence why it's a good idea to get a lawyer to give advice, as any 'slips' based upon the story in court will be pounced upon.

The key points of evidence would seem to be the CCTV at the bar and the police station and the arresting officer. Those might make it clear either way.

Edited by JustinP1 on Monday 9th February 11:40

[Megaflow]

SK425 said:

Megaflow said:

By my maths it works out like this:

Small glass of wine = 125ml
Wine is ~12% ABV
Single JD is 25ml
JD is 40% ABV

3 x 125 x 0.12 = 45ml
1 x 25 x 0.4 = 10ml
Total alcohol = 55ml or 5.5 units.
Broadly the same as two pints of strong beer.

There is no way you should be driving after that regardless of being spiked or not.

OP, you were a fool, you got caught, now take what follows like a man and learn from it. That is called life.

You've been more generous than I was. I assumed 15% for the wine and 35ml for the shot of JD, which made it a smidgen over 7 units. But either way I don't think we can conclude there's no way he should have been driving, partly because as has been pointed out, the relationship between units and the metric you actually get prosecuted for is not simple, but mainly because there is still no mention of timescale from the OP - he could have consumed all that lot in less than an hour or he could have consumed it over five hours for example.

But most of all I think this comes back to:

OP said:

Unfortunately I do not recall the events that took place that night

I don't care how fast you drink it - three small glasses of wine and a shot doesn't sound like anything like enough alcohol to blank out your memory of your night out. If the OP has no memory then I think that suggests very strongly that he consumed something beyond what he listed, so all this discussion of the easy-calculated-but-not-what-actually-matters metric - units - is moot anyway. Whether what he consumed was more alcohol than he claimed or a drug in a spiked drink is something we can all speculate about I suppose.

I was being deliberately cautious with the units to show that it is an absolute minimum of 5.5 units, and the only way I'd consider driving after that would be if I had drunk it over the course of several hours with food.

The memory loss is a red herring, I suspect the Op does not have an issue trying to remember, but somehow thinks it might help his cause. I know everybody is different, but I would have to drink a *lot* more than the above to lose my memory, and I would certainly know about it before the memory goes.

[jesta1865]

i wonder if the bar refused the cctv as a) they know there is a drug issue and could lose their license and or b) it wasn't working and they have been told to make sure it works in the past as a condition of their license.

i hope that he was spiked and it works out for him, i would hate to feel that he is a weapons grade bellend!

[SK425]

Megaflow said:

...and the only way I'd consider driving after that would be if I had drunk it over the course of several hours with food.

Food (and other factors) is an interesting aspect. I know that having it with food can make it feel like alcohol's having less of an effect, but I wonder about the physiology, and how much difference it makes to the legality.

I find my subjective impression of how impaired I feel by alcohol to be quite variable. Sometimes I can feel more affected by one pint than on another day I might feel by three, say. Various factors seem like they could be having an influence - e.g. am I hydrated, have I been eating, am I behind on sleep - and there are probably others I'm not aware of, but it's not a precise science. And that's just variability within me. There must be variability between one person and the next too.

If I drink three pints of beer, I can be certain I've consumed three times as many units as if I'd drunk one pint. I can't be certain before I start how affected I will feel - thinking about things like how well fed and hydrated I am gives me some idea what to expect but I can't predict accurately. And as for the thing that actually gets you convicted - alcohol levels in your body - I have absolutely no idea. For the same number of units consumed, when I feel different effects on different days I don't know how much that's due to variation in the level of alcohol my blood vs the level is the same and the variation is in my body's resilience to the effects. If it's the latter, then factors like making sure you're well fed and hydrated wouldn't be very relevant to legality. And then there's the question of how well my subjective impression of impairment would correlate to some objective measure.

[LoonR1]

jesta1865 said:

i wonder if the bar refused the cctv as a) they know there is a drug issue and could lose their license and or b) it wasn't working and they have been told to make sure it works in the past as a condition of their license.

i hope that he was spiked and it works out for him, i would hate to feel that he is a weapons grade bellend!

Tinfoil.

They're not sharing it because they don't have to. There's no guarantee that it would be ear enough to show what the OP wants anyway. It's not CSI, where the spiker does it right Infront of a handily zoomed in camera.

The OP got pissed, tried to drive home, crashed and got caught. He needs to man up.

[Corpulent Tosser]

STW2010 said:

menor95 said:

I consumed 3 small glasses of wine at a wine tasting session and later a single JD and Coca Cola

That is enough to put you over the limit.

You 'somehow found yourself in your car'. Bullst. Take your punishment like a man, and then either stop drinking or stop drinking like a teenage girl.

Without knowing the facts you cannot say it would put him over the limit.

Three small glasses of wine at a tasting, probably 125ml glasses.
One standard measure of spirits.
Taking his age as 20 and weight as 200lbs, and making an assumption of the drinks taken over a three hour period, he would probably be under the limit.

If it was 250ml glasses and consumed over an hour he would probably be over the limit.

[LucreLout]

OP,

Spiked, or not spiked; can't remember, or don't want to remember; intended to walk, or deliberately drove drunk.... These are things that might seem important to you, but in reality no longer matter.

You will be going to court. Get legal representation now so they can start building a case or working out a mitigation strategy.

I'm pretty sure you licence is toast for a couple if years, so start thinking about busses and taxis as your new transport.

The real question is whether you'll be doing a lot of community service, or a few months in jail.

Check your job contract. Some consider a criminal conviction to be misconduct resulting in dismissal, so a certain amount of financial planning will be needed.

No sympathy if you intended to drive home after several glasses of wine and a whiskey. Frankly you'd deserve a lengthy ban.

[Some Gump]

Terminator X said:

OP not stated timescales, could be over many hours therefore perfectly fine. Some posters need to count to 10 before leaping in ...

TX.

One of my good mates in middle school had a brother. His brother killed an old man crossing the road, and his girlfriend in the passenger seat because he'd had a few then decided to drive. If you'd seen the effect this had on my mate and his family, you'd realise there's no need to count to 10 before deciding that there's no "could be perfectly fine" - if you're drinking, don't drive. It's not difficult.

[Soov535]

Some Gump said:

Terminator X said:

OP not stated timescales, could be over many hours therefore perfectly fine. Some posters need to count to 10 before leaping in ...

TX.

One of my good mates in middle school had a brother. His brother killed an old man crossing the road, and his girlfriend in the passenger seat because he'd had a few then decided to drive. If you'd seen the effect this had on my mate and his family, you'd realise there's no need to count to 10 before deciding that there's no "could be perfectly fine" - if you're drinking, don't drive. It's not difficult.

10 stretch?

[Some Gump]

You know, I can't even tell you. He was still inside when I went to uni, was sent down when I was maybe 13 or 14? So yeah, 10+ sounds about right. Not that there can be a "right" - if it was 5 years per head, or 10, or 20 - you can't undead someone, and his family can't get the time together back. The whole lot just massively sucked - both parents kind of blamed themselves for buying the car, the "if only's" never went away...

[Corpulent Tosser]

Some Gump said:

Terminator X said:

OP not stated timescales, could be over many hours therefore perfectly fine. Some posters need to count to 10 before leaping in ...

TX.

One of my good mates in middle school had a brother. His brother killed an old man crossing the road, and his girlfriend in the passenger seat because he'd had a few then decided to drive. If you'd seen the effect this had on my mate and his family, you'd realise there's no need to count to 10 before deciding that there's no "could be perfectly fine" - if you're drinking, don't drive. It's not difficult.

But you are not considering the timescale as Some Gump said.

Two pints six hours before driving ? What about four hours before driving ?

[agtlaw]

clarkey said:

I would get some really good legal advice too. Here are the sentencing guidelines for failure to provide a sample:

Failure to provide but has an honest excuse (not sure that applies here) - band C fine, 12 to 16 month disqualification
Deliberate refusal (could apply here) - community order, band C fine, 17 to 28 month disqualification
Deliberate refusal with evidence of serious impairment (certainly applies here) - 12 week custody (starting point), up to high level community order and 26 weeks custody, 29 to 36 month ban.

So I reckon you are looking at a low point of 12 weeks in prison and 29 month ban, if it is a first offence.

Aggravating factors:
Unacceptable standard of driving (such as crashing into a kerb?)
Obvious state of intoxication (such as not actively deciding to drive?)
Factor indicating greater degree of harm:
Involved in accident (oops)
Factors reducing culpability:
Genuinely tried to provide a sample (did you?)

Good news, the maximum is a level 5 fine and 6 months in prison for a first offence.
Bad news, the minimum looks like a band 3 fine, 12 weeks in prison and 29 month ban.

I can't see that having a spiked drink offers any defence for failure to provide. Being clearly pissed and having an accident clearly aggravates the offence though....

Best of luck.

The guidelines are for first time offenders convicted after trial. Plead guilty and credit is given - which can be the difference between a community sentence and a custodial sentence. Your analysis of the 'minimum' is flawed and plainly you don't understand that a fine isn't payable where a community or custodial sentence is imposed. Also, I'm not sure what a band 3 fine is. You clearly don't understand the section 7 procedure - which presumably accounts for your failure to recognise the potential defence that spiked drinks could provide to the offence charged. I've already identifed that the issue for the defendant is the evidential burden - the legal burden of proving the correct procedure (including the statutory warning and D's comprehension of the same) is on the crown.

[pork911]

Terminator X said:

OP not stated timescales, could be over many hours therefore perfectly fine. Some posters need to count to 10 before leaping in ...

TX.

is that your considered opinion like on the rape thread?>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Terminator X said:

Chap in the OP should have denied everything, properly fked now if you excuse the pun.

TX.

[clarkey]

agtlaw said:

The guidelines are for first time offenders convicted after trial. Plead guilty and credit is given - which can be the difference between a community sentence and a custodial sentence. Your analysis of the 'minimum' is flawed and plainly you don't understand that a fine isn't payable where a community or custodial sentence is imposed. Also, I'm not sure what a band 3 fine is. You clearly don't understand the section 7 procedure - which presumably accounts for your failure to recognise the potential defence that spiked drinks could provide to the offence charged. I've already identifed that the issue for the defendant is the evidential burden - the legal burden of proving the correct procedure (including the statutory warning and D's comprehension of the same) is on the crown.

Apologies if I got anything wrong, this was just copied from the sentencing guidelines. I have no idea what a band 3 fine is either.

[daveinhampshire]

Someone saying they have their drink spiked is code for they acted like a tt and are looking for an excuse. If someone laces your drink with recreationals such as MDMA/amphetamine etc you wouldn't have memory loss, you'd be gurning your face off and cutting shapes. If it was ketamine or any other dis-associative you'd be a big floppy mess down a K hole.

That only leaves rohypnol which I really can't see someone wasting on a wine tasting evening and even less likely, a bloke. The OP drank way more than I would if I knew I was driving. It was probably, as we have all done, a couple that lead too a few more and before he looked around he'd be nicked. Playing these silly games implying spiked drinks or other rubbish really detracts from someone who has been caught for an offence that kills people.

I'm not putting the guy down, the courts will deal with him nor am I perfect, I've drunk driven in the past but I'd serve the ban and not do it again.

[Jonjo91]

menor95 said:

Hi all.

Bit silliness really but I was going sideways on a roundabout in my Z4 when unfortunately I lost it and the front wheel hit a curb at 15mph or so. Alloy is curbed, tire is ok etc. I think the camber is a bit out. Hard to tell by looking at it though. Is it likely that I bent my wishbone? Can my local tire and wheel garage sort it?

Thanks and yes I know it was stupid before you all have a pop at me

I think OP crashed (again) after a few glasses of wine. PH forums says he likes a bit of fun in his RWD car, don't we all.

[Mk3Spitfire]

Jonjo91 said:

I think OP crashed (again) after a few glasses of wine. PH forums says he likes a bit of fun in his RWD car, don't we all.

Is this guy for real? He's really not doing himself any favours, is he?