Slight legal headache. (Failure to notify police of details)
Discussion
I'll try and keep this short. I'm aware that for a complete answer I'll need to speak to a solicitor at some point however I'd appreciate some more information/advice for now.
I got a call from my mother last week saying I had an important looking letter at home and asked if she should open it. The letter turned out to be a court summons type thing.
One times speeding (35 in a 30)
One times failure to notify police.
The speeding ticket was from last November.
Queue a slight panic.
I'm in the Army, and in the last 9 months have moved accommodation (base) 5 times, as I went through various phases of training. To that end, I've kept my insurance updated, but my postal address has remained at home. Otherwise I'd never receive mail due to the frequency of my moving.
At no point have I received a letter saying I've been speeding. There's a chance it arrived at home and got lost with all the spam waiting for me, but I'm pretty diligent about going through my mail so I suspect there's a chance it never arrived in the first place.
So I managed to find some internet and put in a non guilty plea for the second charge and wrote a few paragraphs to explain my personal situation. I included the fact it would pretty much end my career as an officer if I have any sort of serious conviction against me and as such I would never knowingly do anything unlawful. (I'm not going to lose my job over this matter in particular, but the point being it's in my interests to keep my nose clean)
My questions to those of you with the experience:
What usually happens in this sort of case?
Will personal circumstances factor in at all?
Am I right in thinking that the maximum punishment is 9 penalty points altogether? (not including fines)
Any advice regarding lawyers and who to speak to would be good too. As far as I'm aware the Army legal service wont want to know about this sort of matter.
Edited slightly for clarity.
I got a call from my mother last week saying I had an important looking letter at home and asked if she should open it. The letter turned out to be a court summons type thing.
One times speeding (35 in a 30)
One times failure to notify police.
The speeding ticket was from last November.
Queue a slight panic.
I'm in the Army, and in the last 9 months have moved accommodation (base) 5 times, as I went through various phases of training. To that end, I've kept my insurance updated, but my postal address has remained at home. Otherwise I'd never receive mail due to the frequency of my moving.
At no point have I received a letter saying I've been speeding. There's a chance it arrived at home and got lost with all the spam waiting for me, but I'm pretty diligent about going through my mail so I suspect there's a chance it never arrived in the first place.
So I managed to find some internet and put in a non guilty plea for the second charge and wrote a few paragraphs to explain my personal situation. I included the fact it would pretty much end my career as an officer if I have any sort of serious conviction against me and as such I would never knowingly do anything unlawful. (I'm not going to lose my job over this matter in particular, but the point being it's in my interests to keep my nose clean)
My questions to those of you with the experience:
What usually happens in this sort of case?
Will personal circumstances factor in at all?
Am I right in thinking that the maximum punishment is 9 penalty points altogether? (not including fines)
Any advice regarding lawyers and who to speak to would be good too. As far as I'm aware the Army legal service wont want to know about this sort of matter.
Edited slightly for clarity.
Edited by matthias73 on Tuesday 24th May 01:43
Zombie said:
Summons has been issued by the police because you were caught by a camera and failed to identify the driver under the terms of the initial letter then?
The reason I asked my initial question was; I work for a Local Authority. Due to spending cuts we no longer send mail with the royal mail. It goes out via a cheaper contractor and based on the number of people who ring me up saying they've not received such and such, it would seem that a greater number of letters have been going missing since the switch.
Not saying the Contractor is to blame, it could be as a result of internal job cuts.
And TBH, I'm not sure who sends the ticket from the safety partnership - It may be the LA, it may be the Police. And it may be that the Police have outsourced their post to someone else too...
Thank you for that. I'd have assumed that recorded delivery would have to have been used to prove a letter found itself to my address. Surely the police can't prosecute based on their word that they sent a letter.The reason I asked my initial question was; I work for a Local Authority. Due to spending cuts we no longer send mail with the royal mail. It goes out via a cheaper contractor and based on the number of people who ring me up saying they've not received such and such, it would seem that a greater number of letters have been going missing since the switch.
Not saying the Contractor is to blame, it could be as a result of internal job cuts.
And TBH, I'm not sure who sends the ticket from the safety partnership - It may be the LA, it may be the Police. And it may be that the Police have outsourced their post to someone else too...
Why they didn't just get my contact details through my insurance company is beyond me. It would have taken 3 minutes.
mph1977 said:
matthias73 said:
Thank you for that. I'd have assumed that recorded delivery would have to have been used to prove a letter found itself to my address. Surely the police can't prosecute based on their word that they sent a letter.
Why they didn't just get my contact details through my insurance company is beyond me. It would have taken 3 minutes.
Interpretation Act 1978 S7 ... read it, then MTFU and stop wriggling Why they didn't just get my contact details through my insurance company is beyond me. It would have taken 3 minutes.
Data protection act as well
mph1977 said:
got an issue sunshine ? have a tissue ...
Sympathy is a word in the dictionary between s
t and Syphilis ...
or has the military gone so soft that ex -STABs are now harder and more resilient than current claimed to be regulars ?
No, I don't really care who you are or what you've got to say unless it's related to the subject matter. However if your idea of being hard is foaming at the mouth whilst typing on an internet forum, then sure you can have that award.Sympathy is a word in the dictionary between s
t and Syphilis ...or has the military gone so soft that ex -STABs are now harder and more resilient than current claimed to be regulars ?
tapereel said:
You appear to be guilty of both charges.
You have not replied to the request to name the driver because you have failed to deal properly with your mail. Using the service as an excuse is unlikely to wash with the magistrates although some are very benevolent. The police serve it and it's considered served in the normal course of the post. Perhaps you had better get mum to forward stuff on to you more regularly.
As the car is registered to you the court is likely and reasonably going to assume you were the driver; the police may well use the insurance details to support this too.
Some CPS prosecutors have been accepting a late admission at court that the keeper is the driver and dropping the fail to ID charge but they don't need to do that as it is clear you are guitly of failing to nominate the driver. You could of course plead not guilty and tell them your cock-and-bull story about mum not forwarding your mail.
If you contact a solicitor they will probably tell you to admit driving and ask that charge be dropped then you will be fined and receive 3 points not 6 + 3 = 9. It's up to you whether you need a solicitor to do that but as an officer I would expect you to be able to present that and the circumstances to a court; you don't need someone to do it for you.
It won't be long before you are expected to lead men and women into a fight and they don't want to be led by someone who can't present to a bench of 3 magistrates and expects his mum to sort out his mail for him. I should put "FFS" at the end of that but don't want to be too hard on you. Enjoy your career in the forces, I enjoyed mine and 3, 6 or 9 points isn't going to hinder you at all. Oh...and let your mum off the mail room duties and use a BFPO address if they still have them, that way your mail does follow you.
You know what, fair one. You have not replied to the request to name the driver because you have failed to deal properly with your mail. Using the service as an excuse is unlikely to wash with the magistrates although some are very benevolent. The police serve it and it's considered served in the normal course of the post. Perhaps you had better get mum to forward stuff on to you more regularly.
As the car is registered to you the court is likely and reasonably going to assume you were the driver; the police may well use the insurance details to support this too.
Some CPS prosecutors have been accepting a late admission at court that the keeper is the driver and dropping the fail to ID charge but they don't need to do that as it is clear you are guitly of failing to nominate the driver. You could of course plead not guilty and tell them your cock-and-bull story about mum not forwarding your mail.
If you contact a solicitor they will probably tell you to admit driving and ask that charge be dropped then you will be fined and receive 3 points not 6 + 3 = 9. It's up to you whether you need a solicitor to do that but as an officer I would expect you to be able to present that and the circumstances to a court; you don't need someone to do it for you.
It won't be long before you are expected to lead men and women into a fight and they don't want to be led by someone who can't present to a bench of 3 magistrates and expects his mum to sort out his mail for him. I should put "FFS" at the end of that but don't want to be too hard on you. Enjoy your career in the forces, I enjoyed mine and 3, 6 or 9 points isn't going to hinder you at all. Oh...and let your mum off the mail room duties and use a BFPO address if they still have them, that way your mail does follow you.
Edited by tapereel on Tuesday 24th May 09:11
However, having reviewed all the mail at home, there is nothing relating to a speeding ticket. I just can't say for sure if it has arrived or not, because I wasn't at home on a daily basis seeing stuff come through the door. Which is why I was interested to know if it comes in recorded delivery or not. That way I can verify whether or not a letter arrived at my house, at which point the blame is completely mine. If anything, I'm giving the police a bone here because I can't stand up in court and say with certainty a letter did not arrive.
It's also very well saying have the mail delivered to a work address but if you've ever dealt with the mail system whilst on a course in Brecon you'd see why I would rather it just collected at home. Further to that, it wouldn't have mattered which address I had my mail delivered to. Looking at the dates, I don't think I was anywhere near mail access for the subsequent 2/3 weeks.
Edited note on that subject: I realise the original post makes it look like I'm not capable of reading my own mail. I was yet again in wales, although only for two weeks, so obviously nowhere near my mail, nor would I have been regardless of what address I have it sent to.
Edit to add:
I'm not challenging the speeding ticket. That's absolutely bang to rights and I'm pretty sure it's a static camera in hi vis on a straight road so clearly I've made a mistake there somewhere.
Edited by matthias73 on Tuesday 24th May 16:59
Edited by matthias73 on Tuesday 24th May 17:15
Turns out some plans survive first contact.
Case went through today, I phoned up to find out the results.
3 points, 140 pound fine, court costs and second charge dropped. Which is exactly what I'd hoped for.
There's a few people on this thread who wrote some excellent advice. For that I'm much obliged.
Case went through today, I phoned up to find out the results.
3 points, 140 pound fine, court costs and second charge dropped. Which is exactly what I'd hoped for.
There's a few people on this thread who wrote some excellent advice. For that I'm much obliged.
bmw535i said:
Happy days. Good job it's happened at this stage of your career - I'd imagine that fine would have been a bit higher for a Col
I don't know if the civilian courts differentiate much between ranks, however if a Colonel ever finds himself on back to back field exercises in Brecon and hasn't got access to his mail then his career went a bit to the left at some point 
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