Speeding driver ordered to pay £11,000!!

Speeding driver ordered to pay £11,000!!

Author
Discussion

Pete317

1,430 posts

223 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
HantsRat said:
Pete317 said:
OK, so the guy's a dick.
But if we charged every dick £11K simply for being a dick then the rest of us could probably retire.
Trouble is, it takes an even bigger dick to do so.
Would you have rather paid the 11k yourself as a tax payer? I thought not.
I'd be happy to pay as a taxpayer if it was in the interests of justice.
But not if it's wasted on a shoddy pissing contest.

Black_S3

2,680 posts

189 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
It's a deterrent to other people who may seek to challenge.

The Police and prosecuting authorities have threatened in the past that if you take them on over alleged speeding and lose then your costs will be heavy.
I disagree, you should be able to defend yourself without the fear of un-proportional costs.

Although This story reminds me of the comment Max/Bernie made about the £50 million fine given to Maclaren - 1 million for spying, 49 million because Ron is a Tw@



Edited by Black_S3 on Friday 15th May 15:03

daytona365

1,773 posts

165 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
Isn't that what R8's and similar were built for ?

Sheepshanks

32,799 posts

120 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
Black_S3 said:
Sheepshanks said:
It's a deterrent to other people who may seek to challenge.

The Police and prosecuting authorities have threatened in the past that if you take them on over alleged speeding and lose then your costs will be heavy.
I disagree, you should be able to defend yourself without the fear of un-proportional costs.
I think you should as well - this kind of approach is denying people justice.

Even if you keep it simple, you already get spanked if you elect to go to court rather than accepting a fixed penalty.

gareth_r

5,737 posts

238 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
What was that company that ACPO set up expressly to make it too expensive to contest speeding tickets?

Black_S3

2,680 posts

189 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
hora said:
Theres more to this case than meets the eye. The Defence must have said 'how can you be sure with a R8/question whether it'd work with the shape/be accurate and we'd need you to test it on the exact car for you to be 100% sure'? The Prosecution must have then felt this bloke wasn't going to get away with it. Hence they hired a R8.

Look at it this way. If the Prosecution had spent 10k on hiring a car etc and LOST - what would you say? Thats too much risk.

They did it for a reason. Agree?

We used to have speeding/licence-losing Solicitors sharing the same building as us. In the gravel carpark at the rear at least once a day someone would pull a handbrake turn. People would knock on our reception (can't see the bloody sign?!) and constantly speak to me rudely (hi mate, here bout my tickets etcetc) even though I said 'IM NOT XXX Solicitors'!!!

So it makes you wonder those who face a licence loosing event- what the bloody ell do they do in the cars every day?!

Edited by hora on Friday 15th May 15:48
Look at it this way, it is and should be up to tax payers to pickup the bill for the prosecution that is being brought to protect every one of us. What's next? You are billed for police time when caught speeding?

flemke

22,865 posts

238 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
R8VXF said:
flemke said:
HantsRat said:
Pete317 said:
OK, so the guy's a dick.
But if we charged every dick £11K simply for being a dick then the rest of us could probably retire.
Trouble is, it takes an even bigger dick to do so.
Would you have rather paid the 11k yourself as a tax payer? I thought not.
I don't think anyone has said that the driver, having pleaded "Not guilty", should not have had to pay for the expenditure required to prove that he was guilty.

Regardless of who paid for it, why was it necessary to burn £11k in the first place?

In light of the scarce resources of the Police/justice system, were the person-hours spent on this amusement justified? Did the officials truly have nothing better to do with themselves?

I believe that there is an offence of "Wasting Police Time". This instance seems a perfect example of that.
Independent expert witnesses doing most of the work, maybe one cop on the day of the test, not much time wasted by the police IMO. The police were probably told to go away and prove that the defence expert witnesses were wrong, so had to do something. That is just how I read it.
Considering that it should take 2 people one day - at most - to take the car to an airfield and test the equipment, plus expense of hiring a £60k car for one day, plus hiring the independent expert for another day to come to court, I don't know where the great majority of the £11k came from, unless there was a substantial amount of labour involved in other aspects of the prosecution. Perhaps it required only one day's time of a single police officer, but they tell us that the CPS are stretched as well as the Police are, and from here it seems that the paucity of their resources has as much to do with delays in prosecutions (or lack of prosecutions) of society's true lowlifes as does the paucity of Police resources.

flemke

22,865 posts

238 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
flemke said:
Regardless of who paid for it, why was it necessary to burn £11k in the first place?

In light of the scarce resources of the Police/justice system, were the person-hours spent on this amusement justified? Did the officials truly have nothing better to do with themselves?
It's a deterrent to other people who may seek to challenge.

The Police and prosecuting authorities have threatened in the past that if you take them on over alleged speeding and lose then your costs will be heavy.
Yes, it is a deterrent to piss-takers, but it also is a deterrent to people who genuinely believe that they were, and, in some cases, who actually were innocent of the alleged offence.

A few years ago I was pulled at a Trafpol speed trap in Sussex. I was accused of speeding, which I did not think that I had done. I had thought the limit was 60, whereas the Trafpol insisted that, "It is 40 here".

Luckily for me, I did not have my licence on me, and thus was given 7 days to produce. If I had had my licence on me, I probably would have accepted a fixed penalty notice on the spot.

The 7 days' gap gave me the chance to go back and inspect the site. In doing this I became convinced that the legal speed limit had in fact been 60, not 40.

I got a specialist solicitor and spent nearly a year struggling with the government and CPS bureaucracy. In the end, the CPS accepted that the limit had been 60, not 40. (In the interim, the local authority had gone in there and changed the signs, after which it really was 40.) The local authority had to pay me my costs, which were in the thousands.

My point is that I was also lucky in another way: I could have afforded to pay court costs if I had lost. Many people would not have been able to pay those costs if had they lost, and, as the specialist solicitor told me at the time, "You were in the right, the prosecution was wrong, but that is no guarantee that the magistrate will understand the specific law and dismiss the case."

It's great to dissuade the genuine jerks who are simply trying it on, but it is deeply unfair to scare off potentially innocent people simply because they lack the means to bear a loss.

R8VXF

6,788 posts

116 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
flemke said:
Yes, it is a deterrent to piss-takers, but it also is a deterrent to people who genuinely believe that they were, and, in some cases, who actually were innocent of the alleged offence.

A few years ago I was pulled at a Trafpol speed trap in Sussex. I was accused of speeding, which I did not think that I had done. I had thought the limit was 60, whereas the Trafpol insisted that, "It is 40 here".

Luckily for me, I did not have my licence on me, and thus was given 7 days to produce. If I had had my licence on me, I probably would have accepted a fixed penalty notice on the spot.

The 7 days' gap gave me the chance to go back and inspect the site. In doing this I became convinced that the legal speed limit had in fact been 60, not 40.

I got a specialist solicitor and spent nearly a year struggling with the government and CPS bureaucracy. In the end, the CPS accepted that the limit had been 60, not 40. (In the interim, the local authority had gone in there and changed the signs, after which it really was 40.) The local authority had to pay me my costs, which were in the thousands.

My point is that I was also lucky in another way: I could have afforded to pay court costs if I had lost. Many people would not have been able to pay those costs if had they lost, and, as the specialist solicitor told me at the time, "You were in the right, the prosecution was wrong, but that is no guarantee that the magistrate will understand the specific law and dismiss the case."

It's great to dissuade the genuine jerks who are simply trying it on, but it is deeply unfair to scare off potentially innocent people simply because they lack the means to bear a loss.
So you get to claim your costs but the prosecution isn't. Tad unfair...

Black_S3

2,680 posts

189 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
R8VXF said:
o you get to claim your costs but the prosecution isn't. Tad unfair...
Our legal system basis itself on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. It is weighted that way to ensure justice is not just for the rich amongst other things.

R8VXF

6,788 posts

116 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
Black_S3 said:
R8VXF said:
o you get to claim your costs but the prosecution isn't. Tad unfair...
Our legal system basis itself on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. It is weighted that way to ensure justice is not just for the rich amongst other things.
And in this case the police were confident that this chap was guilty in the same way you were proved innocent. Sounds like he got bad advice from the experts that he paid that they could get him off on a technicality. He got what he deserved.

Black_S3

2,680 posts

189 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
R8VXF said:
He got what he deserved.
Agreed lol

flemke

22,865 posts

238 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
R8VXF said:
flemke said:
Yes, it is a deterrent to piss-takers, but it also is a deterrent to people who genuinely believe that they were, and, in some cases, who actually were innocent of the alleged offence.

A few years ago I was pulled at a Trafpol speed trap in Sussex. I was accused of speeding, which I did not think that I had done. I had thought the limit was 60, whereas the Trafpol insisted that, "It is 40 here".

Luckily for me, I did not have my licence on me, and thus was given 7 days to produce. If I had had my licence on me, I probably would have accepted a fixed penalty notice on the spot.

The 7 days' gap gave me the chance to go back and inspect the site. In doing this I became convinced that the legal speed limit had in fact been 60, not 40.

I got a specialist solicitor and spent nearly a year struggling with the government and CPS bureaucracy. In the end, the CPS accepted that the limit had been 60, not 40. (In the interim, the local authority had gone in there and changed the signs, after which it really was 40.) The local authority had to pay me my costs, which were in the thousands.

My point is that I was also lucky in another way: I could have afforded to pay court costs if I had lost. Many people would not have been able to pay those costs if had they lost, and, as the specialist solicitor told me at the time, "You were in the right, the prosecution was wrong, but that is no guarantee that the magistrate will understand the specific law and dismiss the case."

It's great to dissuade the genuine jerks who are simply trying it on, but it is deeply unfair to scare off potentially innocent people simply because they lack the means to bear a loss.
So you get to claim your costs but the prosecution isn't. Tad unfair...
Sorry, but "...the prosecution isn't..." what? confused

XDA

2,141 posts

186 months

Friday 15th May 2015
quotequote all
gareth_r said:
What was that company that ACPO set up expressly to make it too expensive to contest speeding tickets?
Road Safety Support Ltd? The company Steve Callaghan, I mean tapereel works for?

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
Black_S3 said:
Sheepshanks said:
It's a deterrent to other people who may seek to challenge.

The Police and prosecuting authorities have threatened in the past that if you take them on over alleged speeding and lose then your costs will be heavy.
I disagree, you should be able to defend yourself without the fear of un-proportional costs.
I think you should as well - this kind of approach is denying people justice.

Even if you keep it simple, you already get spanked if you elect to go to court rather than accepting a fixed penalty.
No one is being denied justic. Smart arses trying to be clever get to suffer the consequences.

flemke

22,865 posts

238 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Sheepshanks said:
Black_S3 said:
Sheepshanks said:
It's a deterrent to other people who may seek to challenge.

The Police and prosecuting authorities have threatened in the past that if you take them on over alleged speeding and lose then your costs will be heavy.
I disagree, you should be able to defend yourself without the fear of un-proportional costs.
I think you should as well - this kind of approach is denying people justice.

Even if you keep it simple, you already get spanked if you elect to go to court rather than accepting a fixed penalty.
No one is being denied justic. Smart arses trying to be clever get to suffer the consequences.
Is Legal Aid available to persons who would like to challenge driving prosecutions?

Edited by flemke on Saturday 16th May 15:14

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
Legal aid is not available to a lot of people. That isn't a driving issue, it's a general problem with access to justice.

agtlaw

6,712 posts

207 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
Devil2575 said:
Legal aid is not available to a lot of people. That isn't a driving issue, it's a general problem with access to justice.
Legal aid isn't available for speeding. The general rule is that the offence must be imprisonable. The applicant's means are irrelevant if the offence doesn't qualify for legal aid.

OP, a curious case. Defendant is probably £20k down. I'd be interested in further details. Who defended it?

Devil2575

13,400 posts

189 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
agtlaw said:
Devil2575 said:
Legal aid is not available to a lot of people. That isn't a driving issue, it's a general problem with access to justice.
Legal aid isn't available for speeding. The general rule is that the offence must be imprisonable. The applicant's means are irrelevant if the offence doesn't qualify for legal aid.

OP, a curious case. Defendant is probably £20k down. I'd be interested in further details. Who defended it?
I know, I was simply saying that issues with legal aid go beyond speeding.

silentbrown

8,845 posts

117 months

Saturday 16th May 2015
quotequote all
agtlaw said:
I'd be interested in further details. Who defended it?
Whoever it was, they're probably keeping a pretty low profile at the moment.