RE: Meredydd Hughes on the legal offensive
Discussion
flemke said:
vonhosen said:
It's not a nonsense, if you were never offered the FPN you would get more than a £60 fine at court if convicted. As such the FPN would be a discount.
And as such the court conviction would beget an additional penalty. It's the same thing - one is less, the other is more. You're just choosing the larger penalty as your reference, and spinning the lesser penalty as a good deal for the motorist.
The point is that there is a difference between one's penalties which is not based on what offence one was found to have committed, but which is based only on one's complaisance.
How can different punishments for the same offence be fair?
Why should you get more penalty points on your licence if you really believe that you are innocent?
Why?
It's very nice to make the system's job easier for it, but that's not always right and just, is it?
The points allocated are as per sentencing guidelines for court hearings.
If you are offered a FPN it is to avoid the expense of court time 'where you know you are guilty of the offence'. You are given a discount in recognition of the early plea & saving of court time.
It isn't peculiar to motoring offences.
If you are convicted of burglary the court will give a discount in recognition of an early plea.
That makes perfect sense to me.
I know this sounds off topic but bear with me:
I know someone who has been convicted of commiting a sexual offence against his 11 yr old niece. The niece claimed he touched her.
Only those two people know the truth, there is no evidence, no witnesses.
Immediately after the allegation the case was reported in the local newspaper, except the newspaper reported that two 11 yr olds made allegations against him, not one. The chaps address was included in the report.
Some other aspects of the case: The girl has a record of telling porkies. A manhunt, including the use of helicopters, was once swung into action after she made up a story of a friend being abducted. This happened about a year before the sexual allegation.
Part of her evidence was of her actions and movements that day, including the precise times of day of where she was and what she did throughout the day. This was from an 11 yr old girl who didn't wear a wristwatch.
The case has caused a large and loveing family to literally blow apart. The nieces family has waged a campaign of hatemail, making much references to the fact that the chap and his wife drive Porsches. Those of us on the outside who know of the case are perplexed to the relevance of any car.
It cost the chap £32,000 to defend himself. You have to wonder what defence he would have had if he had no money. A jury found him guilty. He would like to appeal, but is afraid if he did so he would be sent to jail.
I'm just making these points because I feel that I know now that someone can be covicted without evidence; when the punishment is worse if you plead not guilty and a conviction could lead to jail, then without a shadow of a doubt there are people out there who have pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit; and that people are not appealing against what they know is a wrong verdict because they are afraid of the consequences if they do so.
(As an aside: In the village where they live, the parents of other children won't let their kids play with the chaps kids. The other mothers won't speak to the chaps wife outside the school gates. There's no point in them moving away 'cos the nieces family have made it clear they will persue them.
Remember how back in the middle ages society used to have witch hunts? - It still does.)
I know someone who has been convicted of commiting a sexual offence against his 11 yr old niece. The niece claimed he touched her.
Only those two people know the truth, there is no evidence, no witnesses.
Immediately after the allegation the case was reported in the local newspaper, except the newspaper reported that two 11 yr olds made allegations against him, not one. The chaps address was included in the report.
Some other aspects of the case: The girl has a record of telling porkies. A manhunt, including the use of helicopters, was once swung into action after she made up a story of a friend being abducted. This happened about a year before the sexual allegation.
Part of her evidence was of her actions and movements that day, including the precise times of day of where she was and what she did throughout the day. This was from an 11 yr old girl who didn't wear a wristwatch.
The case has caused a large and loveing family to literally blow apart. The nieces family has waged a campaign of hatemail, making much references to the fact that the chap and his wife drive Porsches. Those of us on the outside who know of the case are perplexed to the relevance of any car.
It cost the chap £32,000 to defend himself. You have to wonder what defence he would have had if he had no money. A jury found him guilty. He would like to appeal, but is afraid if he did so he would be sent to jail.
I'm just making these points because I feel that I know now that someone can be covicted without evidence; when the punishment is worse if you plead not guilty and a conviction could lead to jail, then without a shadow of a doubt there are people out there who have pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit; and that people are not appealing against what they know is a wrong verdict because they are afraid of the consequences if they do so.
(As an aside: In the village where they live, the parents of other children won't let their kids play with the chaps kids. The other mothers won't speak to the chaps wife outside the school gates. There's no point in them moving away 'cos the nieces family have made it clear they will persue them.
Remember how back in the middle ages society used to have witch hunts? - It still does.)
vonhosen said:
Heebeegeetee said:
Only those two people know the truth, there is no evidence, no witnesses.
How do you know he didn't do it ?My layman's take is that one would have expected that in the face of insufficient evidence, the jury would have been directed to acquit; the fact that they weren't and didn't tends to imply that, as usual with anecdotes, there's more to this story than is presented here.
FishFace said:
It is technically and legally a discount. As usual people here can't look beyond minor motoring offences. It extends across the whole of criminal offences. An early plead will often result in third being taken away off someone's sentence.
...and that ain't just either.It doesn't matter what weasel words are used, the fact remains that defending oneself puts one in greater jeopardy.
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
FishFace said:
It is technically and legally a discount.
Right, and when a shop puts up its prices one week, then the next week brings them back to where they were before, they call it a "Sale".The point is that it does not matter what it "technically and legally" is called, what matters is that there is a penalty differential depending on whether you choose to defend yourself.
The inevitable - and intended - consequence is that some people will not defend themselves, even when they believe that they may be innocent.
FishFace said:
As usual people here can't look beyond minor motoring offences. It extends across the whole of criminal offences. An early plead will often result in third being taken away off someone's sentence.
The reason that "As usual people here can't look beyond minor motoring offences", as you condescendingly put it, is that the vast majority of minor motoring offences are fundamentally different from "the whole of criminal offences".vonhosen said:
flemke said:
vonhosen said:
It's not a nonsense, if you were never offered the FPN you would get more than a £60 fine at court if convicted. As such the FPN would be a discount.
And as such the court conviction would beget an additional penalty. It's the same thing - one is less, the other is more. You're just choosing the larger penalty as your reference, and spinning the lesser penalty as a good deal for the motorist.
The point is that there is a difference between one's penalties which is not based on what offence one was found to have committed, but which is based only on one's complaisance.
How can different punishments for the same offence be fair?
Why should you get more penalty points on your licence if you really believe that you are innocent?
Why?
It's very nice to make the system's job easier for it, but that's not always right and just, is it?
The points allocated are as per sentencing guidelines for court hearings.
If you are offered a FPN it is to avoid the expense of court time 'where you know you are guilty of the offence'. You are given a discount in recognition of the early plea & saving of court time.
It isn't peculiar to motoring offences.
If you are convicted of burglary the court will give a discount in recognition of an early plea.
That makes perfect sense to me.
flemke said:
vonhosen said:
flemke said:
vonhosen said:
It's not a nonsense, if you were never offered the FPN you would get more than a £60 fine at court if convicted. As such the FPN would be a discount.
And as such the court conviction would beget an additional penalty. It's the same thing - one is less, the other is more. You're just choosing the larger penalty as your reference, and spinning the lesser penalty as a good deal for the motorist.
The point is that there is a difference between one's penalties which is not based on what offence one was found to have committed, but which is based only on one's complaisance.
How can different punishments for the same offence be fair?
Why should you get more penalty points on your licence if you really believe that you are innocent?
Why?
It's very nice to make the system's job easier for it, but that's not always right and just, is it?
The points allocated are as per sentencing guidelines for court hearings.
If you are offered a FPN it is to avoid the expense of court time 'where you know you are guilty of the offence'. You are given a discount in recognition of the early plea & saving of court time.
It isn't peculiar to motoring offences.
If you are convicted of burglary the court will give a discount in recognition of an early plea.
That makes perfect sense to me.
The financial 'discount' is one thing... but if you go to court and lose not only do you often receive a larger fine, you have to pay the court costs anyway!
Similarly with the points 'award'. The whole point of the points system is to proportion a supposed amount of seriousness to the offence to add toward a potential ban. If banning drivers through totting up is in the public interest, why should the points awarded dramatically change? The only reason is can be is no make each individual make an individual choice. If they are guilty, then they have a 3 pointer. But if they are not guilty they have a real quandry on whether to fight the case or not.
An example in point:
3 years ago I was pulled over after being zapped with a dodgyscope (before all the press coverage). I questioned the reading in the car, and despite being warned otherwise I rejected the 3 points and £60 FPN.
I pleaded not guilty at court and put forward what I was told was an excellent case against an operator who admitted that the device was not used, aimed or tested properly.
I was found guilty and given 6 points and a £200 fine plus costs.
Of course the mags have to take in the circumstances of the 'speeding' as if I am guilty, but there was nothing aggravating which would make the alleged speed of 92 in a 70 any worse - indeed traffic was very light, on a bright, dry day on a DC which is poker straight for 10 miles.
Ironically, the very same court a year ago gave *exactly* the same punishment to the girl who was videod putting her make-up on in her drivers mirror *whilst driving*!
So what is the message to me and the public!? This is how speeding will be punished if you dare to plead not guilty!?
Edited by JustinP1 on Tuesday 29th May 11:23
vonhosen said:
It's not a nonsense, if you were never offered the FPN you would get more than a £60 fine at court if convicted. As such the FPN would be a discount.
At court as well, recognition has to be given for an early plea.
At court as well, recognition has to be given for an early plea.
"Judge Morrell also reportedly ruled that where someone decides to challenge a speeding fixed penalty and is subsequently convicted by a court, it is “wrong in principal” for the court to impose a large fine."
apache said:
The reason for dissuading you to have your day in court is simple. If everyone did it the courts would be inundated and the paper workload colossal. It's not some grand gesture to save you time and money at all
Yes, and that raises the question of why justice should be hostage to the convenience of the authorities.flemke said:
apache said:
The reason for dissuading you to have your day in court is simple. If everyone did it the courts would be inundated and the paper workload colossal. It's not some grand gesture to save you time and money at all
Yes, and that raises the question of why justice should be hostage to the convenience of the authorities.If an offence is too petty for a jury trial it's too petty to prosecute.
JustinP1 said:
flemke said:
Does it make perfect sense in the case of people who really and truly believe that they may have been innocent, yet are fearful of the even greater penalty that they would suffer if found guilty by an all-wise magistrate?
Completely agreed.The financial 'discount' is one thing... but if you go to court and lose not only do you often receive a larger fine, you have to pay the court costs anyway!
Similarly with the points 'award'. The whole point of the points system is to proportion a supposed amount of seriousness to the offence to add toward a potential ban. If banning drivers through totting up is in the public interest, why should the points awarded dramatically change? The only reason is can be is no make each individual make an individual choice. If they are guilty, then they have a 3 pointer. But if they are not guilty they have a real quandry on whether to fight the case or not.
...
So what is the message to me and the public!? This is how speeding will be punished if you dare to plead not guilty!?
Yet if the points are going to double if you take the case to court and lose, that makes challenging the NIP a real gamble - you are halving your number of lives (and making your insurance increase siginficantly - they may not mind 3pts, but they don't like 6 at once!).
And in today's automated-enforcement-society, are you REALLY going to remember what you were doing 2 weeks ago?!?
But the SCPs no longer send you helpful photos to assist you in:- a) identifying if it was your car; b) identifying who was driving; and c) working out, if it was you, whether you probably were speeding at that point in time. So there may be many people who don't KNOW if it was them and if they were speeding, but are being COERCED into pleading guilty by this threat of greater punishment (from their perspective).
They could (if they weren't law-abiding!) send out random NIPs, and the threat of draconian punishment in court would be enough to persuade a bunch of completely innocent people to plead guilty - it's the old "prisoner's dilemma" game-theory scenario.
...and this example alone MUST show that the current system is flawed in regard to the provision of true justice to the accused.
Final point - assuming FF's and VH's 'discount' is true...is it in society's interest that a 'simple' speeder (85 in a 70, 36 in a 30, etc.) should have their life turned upside-down (loss of licence, loss of employment, etc.) for 2 offences in 3 years. Because THAT is the implication behind the 6pts that Justin got!!!
havoc said:
Final point - assuming FF's and VH's 'discount' is true...is it in society's interest that a 'simple' speeder (85 in a 70, 36 in a 30, etc.) should have their life turned upside-down (loss of licence, loss of employment, etc.) for 2 offences in 3 years. Because THAT is the implication behind the 6pts that Justin got!!!
The system is fundamentally broken, it needs torn down and replaced by something far more lightweight with a greater basis in fact and less in groundless fear.fluffnik said:
FishFace said:
Actually, the original intention was to enable to courts not to be jammed up with shite motoring matters when they have much more serious things to deal with.
So stop prosecuting shite made up motoring "offences".Like speeding.
Good one Fluff
FishFace said:
Actually, the original intention was to enable to courts not to be jammed up with shite motoring matters when they have much more serious things to deal with. The same attitude that incidentally most here would apply to Police enforcing speed limits as oppose to 'chasing real criminals', no?
But since speeding is still a 'crime', and makes up (under the current system of wholesale "book 'em while they wait (for the postie)" enforcement) a large proportion of the crime stats, and, since one of the CPS' targets is a high OVERALL successful prosecution rate, it has become in the system's interests for drivers not to challenge (potentially) flawed NIPs, as (given the preponderance of speeding among the crime stats) this will upset the CPS' ability to hit their targets if many NIPs get to court and are successfully overturned.So you get what M. Hughes came out with - a thinly-veiled threat to dissuade people from challenging prosecutions as it's far easier for them to intimidate the public than force their own house into order (LTI's that actually WORK RELIABLY, employees that WON'T try and create more offences to hit their own targets / bonuses, watertight controls to pre-empt these loopholes before the NIPs get sent out).
Frankly, it's p'ss-poor...the very PUBLIC SERVANTS that should be ensuring they serve the public diligently are twisting the system to make their own lives easier. Quite aside from the 'public interest' aspect because the whole 'speed kills' philosophy is clearly based around erroneous and/or deliberately skewed data.
So (apologies to those who've heard it before):-
1) Enforcement should be retargeted at uninsured, cloned, dangerous and careless drivers, which cannot be detected (largely) by cameras;
2) Speed enforcement should be focused on inappropriate speed, not blanket speed. Again, difficult to do with automated cameras.
3) Performance targets should be removed from the SCPs and the CPS, or heavily revised such that those that remain are far more specific and intended to get them to do their jobs properly...without the need to intimidate the public.
4) Penalties for statutory road-traffic offences (as opposed to genuine 'unsafe' driving) should be more proportionate, e.g. get rid of the points and leave a fine based on % over the limit - <10% = 0; 10-20% = £30; 20-30% = £60, 30-40% = £120, >40% (i.e. 43 in a 30; 85 in a 60; 99 in a 70) = CPS prosecution for greater offence. %'s to be reduced in icy/wet conditions.
How does that sound?!?
FishFace said:
odyssey2200 said:
fluffnik said:
FishFace said:
Actually, the original intention was to enable to courts not to be jammed up with shite motoring matters when they have much more serious things to deal with.
So stop prosecuting shite made up motoring "offences".Like speeding.
Good one Fluff
I'd rather have a much better look at road safety. Like some of the stuff Havoc mentions.
It would also be seen as a climb down by the law and no one has the balls or wants the to be red faced.
Edited by odyssey2200 on Tuesday 29th May 17:53
FishFace said:
flemke said:
Right, and when a shop puts up its prices one week, then the next week brings them back to where they were before, they call it a "Sale".
The point is that it does not matter what it "technically and legally" is called, what matters is that there is a penalty differential depending on whether you choose to defend yourself.
The inevitable - and intended - consequence is that some people will not defend themselves, even when they believe that they may be innocent.
The point is that it does not matter what it "technically and legally" is called, what matters is that there is a penalty differential depending on whether you choose to defend yourself.
The inevitable - and intended - consequence is that some people will not defend themselves, even when they believe that they may be innocent.
Actually, the original intention was to enable to courts not to be jammed up with shite motoring matters when they have much more serious things to deal with. The same attitude that incidentally most here would apply to Police enforcing speed limits as oppose to 'chasing real criminals', no?
The shop analogy doesn't work. The Courts operate their "price" differences in parallel. Since everyone is so profoundly concerned with our justice system, why not look at the true sentencing guidelines and / or punishments and disregard the discounts?
The point of the shop analogy was to illustrate how semantic differences can be exploited to deceive the public into thinking that something is better than it actually is: a "sale" that offers no genuine price reduction, or a penalty "discount" that is actually the normal penalty. That is, the FPN penalty is the one which in the overwhelming majority of cases is meted out, and the one which is tolerated by the public precisely because that is what they believe to be "the penalty" for a given offence.
I'd be happy to look at the true sentencing guidelines if you would be kind enough to provide a link or clue to finding them.
I suspect that their severity is such that, if everyone who accepted a motoring FPN were instead to receive the true sentencing guideline penalty, the country would soon be up in arms in protest.
Because the vast majority of motorists who are alleged to have offended will accept an FPN, the FPN price is the norm, the default option. That is the basis on which the public are willing to tolerate > 2 million motoring penalties p.a.
To call something a "discount" implies that the normal price is higher. But if almost everyone normally pays the "discounted" price, that lower price is the standard. A shopkeeper might want to persist in calling the higher price the "norm" in order to make the lower price seem like a special favour, but the fact that the vast majority do business with him on the basis of the lower price gives the lie to that bit of sales spin.
FishFace said:
said:
The reason that "As usual people here can't look beyond minor motoring offences", as you condescendingly put it, is that the vast majority of minor motoring offences are fundamentally different from "the whole of criminal offences".
Not sure how they are fundamentally different. They are subject to sentencing guidelines as any other offence and offer reduced penalties for early pleas. It's quite right a murderer who has the opportunity to not create an X thousand £££ trial has an incentive and opportunity to do so. The same law is consistent and transpose on to minor matters, such as what are discussed here. Notwithstanding my lack of expertise and rhetorical skill, a couple of obvious things seem to distinguish motoring offences from most others (you can hold your water here, vonhosen, for we know that there are a few exceptions):
- A person can be found guilty of a motoring offence regardless of whether he or she was aware that an offence was being committed, right?
Mens rea is a criminal law concept which focuses on the mental state of the accused and requires proof of a positive state of mind such as intent, recklessness, or willful blindness. In jurisdictions with due process, some level of mens rea is almost always a required element of the crime with which the defendant is charged, and must be proven by the prosecution, the exception being strict liability crimes or torts (Wikipedia)
- More than 99% of the time, a motoring offence is a victimless crime. For example, fewer than one in a hundred million instances of speeding results in a fatal accident.
Therefore, the overwhelming majority of speeding offences are not based on actual harm, nor are they based on proximate danger. Rather, they are based on a highly tenuous correlation between what a theoretical driver might do in a theoretical situation that probably is unrelated to one's own real-world actions and the actual consequences thereof.
So you can be penalised despite the fact that you didn't know that you were committing an offence and in fact would have acted differently if only you had known that you were about to commit one, and you can be penalised for doing something that not only did not harm anyone else or their property but, in some circumstances, could not possibly have harmed anyone else.
I know that Labour have gone crazy in the last ten years in creating thousands of new offences of all sorts, but does the above not suggest to you that motoring offences are fundamentally different from most other statutory offences, and from most moral offences as well?
Surely one of the criteria for a penalty is that it should fit the offence. A given offence and set of circumstances surrounding the offence itself should lead the authorities to a consistently enforced penalty, without fear or favour.
That rule of fair play and common sense is violated when a person receives a harsher penalty simply because he had the temerity to question whether he or she was in fact guilty.
If the law were perfectly unambiguous, if every LA rigourously followed the official recommendations for road signage, if no authority ever weaseled around or even lied to protect his position or cover his mistakes, if parts of the enforcement system were never given to pursuing their private political agendas, then perhaps no accused motorist would have cause to doubt an allegation against him, and every charge would be settled with a FPN.
Because there are elements of the system that are flawed, others that are confused and confusing, and even a few that are dishonest, people will sometimes need to ask a court to examine the whole situation and determine whether in fact an offence was committed and they were culpable for it.
Why should citizens be punished because they seek to establish the truth?
FishFace said:
This site pretty much covers sentencing guidelines. There is a mass of reading and digging. http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/
This one may help although I've only skim-read it http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/docs/MCSG-...
Cheers.This one may help although I've only skim-read it http://www.sentencing-guidelines.gov.uk/docs/MCSG-...
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