In court on Wednesday, this should be fun!

[R.E.J.S]

First of all i now have NO PENALTY POINTS on my licence nor do i have any bans showing on my licence.

I have been accussed of driving whilst on my mobile. The amazing thing is for once in my life i am completely innocent.I have made one appearence and pleaded not guilty. On Wednesday the officer who has accsused me of this offence will be there to give his eveidence. I will get the opportunity to cross examine his evidence.

The facts are as follows:-

I was driving in the opposite direction at 30 M.P.H and they were traveling at approxamtley the same speed (combined speed of 60 M.P.H)

We were both driving under a bridge at the same time, he was the passenger in the panda car.

I was driving a black car, with black interior and a black fabric roof with slightly tinted glass.

I had my car brand new in 2005 and had it pre wired with a universal hands free telephone system.

The officers statement says that "when he seen me, i noticed him a quickly moved an object away from my right ear"

The statement says i was stopped at 18.00hrs

My defence:-

I did not use a hand held telephone.

I had a passenger/ witness that can confirm this.

I have a letter from Mercedes Benz explaining that i am the owner of the car and my car is fitted with a handsfree telephone system, which is a system that can only be installed when the car was built (in 2005)

I have wrote my telephone service provider asking them for the call activity on my account but they can only provide me with the out going call activity, the last call that was made was at 17.37 and then the next at 18.48 They cannot provide me with the incoming call activity, they can only give out this information if it is requested by the court.

The mobile telephone records will cost the court between £900-£1000

If found guilty i will appeal at Crown Court, for someone with a clean licence this is how far i will go to prove my innocence.

I will give you all an update on Wednesday.

[R.E.J.S]

Jasandjules said:

Good luck.

What was the Date which you were "spotted" on the phone?
Were streetlights on? Headlights?

No street lights were on it June 2007, it was a warm day as i recall.

I will keep you posted!

[R.E.J.S]

HRG said:

Seconded, I wish you luck. Just watch if the git tries to say you were on someone else's phone!!!

Thanks, H.R.G i will let you know the outcome.

It's now there job to prove it, i will revert to my defence, my car is fitted with a UNIVERSAL handsfree car kit, i have the spec to show the Court that says it can be paired with an un limited amount of handsets.

[R.E.J.S]

Jasandjules said:

R.E.J.S said:

No street lights were on it June 2007, it was a warm day as i recall.

I will keep you posted!

Ok, so what was the position of the sun? Was it behind you?

Just thinking of ways in which the officers vision was also disturbed to confirm that he would have needed eagle eyes to spot the "mobile" he claims you had..

The sun was behind me, but the bridge we were under is quite dark.

[R.E.J.S]

a boardman said:

Why does it need a court order to release the information on incoming calls?

Exactly that, i can't even access my own telephone records.

[R.E.J.S]

derestrictor said:

Please don't take this the wrong way but for the purposes of objectivity, can you assure venerable members that there was or were no agitating factors which persauded trafpol to pull you?

If all your tackle was hands free when they stopped you I'm perplexed as to precisely why they didn't merely acknowledge their error, apologise and move on?

You make the comment "for once in my life I'm innocent..?"

I offered to show the officer the telephone system installed in my car, i'm assuming that he realised he had immediately made a mistake in pulling me over and was hoping i would just take his advice and contest the alleged offence in Court rather than him having to admit he had made a mistake face to face, i also refused to accept a fixed penalty notice for the alleged offence, under no circumstances was i accepting a fixed penalty for something i had not done!

I insisted to see his superior officer, who attended the seen, he also refused to take a look at my call register and my telephone system, so in answer to your question "I'm perplexed as to precisely why they didn't merely acknowledge their error, apologise and move on?" ... Your guess is as good as mine!

You also ask.... You make the comment "for once in my life I'm innocent..?"
Well the answer to this is that i have been stopped numerous times over the years for different motoring offences (speeding used to be a favorite pass time of mine)and i have always been in the wrong previously, i would always admit i am at fault if i am, and i am intelligent enough to understand that if i am guilty of a motoring offence then the chances are that a court is going to find me guilty so to save time and hassle i will always put my hands up if im in the wrong.

This is the first time i had been stopped for NOT committing an offence

To assure other members, i am sure the Police do not just pull anyone over just because they feel like it, they have just made a mistake on this occasion!

[R.E.J.S]

Jasandjules said:

R.E.J.S said:

The sun was behind me, but the bridge we were under is quite dark.

How large was the bridge? How long would it take 2 vehicles with a combined speed of 60mph to proceed through it? As before that point he'd have the sun in his eyes, so exactly at what point did he claim you were using the mobile, and how long did he have to do so?

These are questions i will be asking the Police officer on Wednesday in court, i will let you know his responses.

[R.E.J.S]

I have not pinned my hopes on this, but i feel i still need explain the telephone system is a blue tooth Mercedes system my phone was in the glove box rolling around, i do not have a telephone in the car.The phone use with my hands free system is the same one i use when not in the car.

My defence is based on me being innocent, the court have to prove i was on the phone which i was not, they will have to request the telephone records of any phones that they think were in the car at the time. What the Police should have done at the time was ask these questions about other telephones that may have been present at the time. The Magistrates may decide to convict me if they feel this case is to complicated for them, however a Circuit Judge at a Crown Court will have to take this in account, the Police do not have enough evidence to prove that i was on the telephone, they can apply for my telephone records which will prove this, they may also apply for my passengers telephone records which will again prove no call were being made or received at the time of the alleged offence, insufficient evidence.

No Red Herrings Present.

Edited by R.E.J.S on Saturday 19th April 15:23

Edited by R.E.J.S on Saturday 19th April 15:25

[R.E.J.S]

The Police Officers statement says " He seen me talking on a mobile phone" so in response to if i was switching the phone on/off etc.. may not be relevant.

Correctly the Police Officer is prepared to swear on oath, which is fine because i'm not accusing him of being a liar i am accusing him of making a mistake! I fully understand that he is doing his job but sometimes people make mistakes, even Police officers.

There is one final point of defence that i have, but i would rather not disclose that at this point, once i have made my appearance on Wednesday i will let you know the outcome.

[R.E.J.S]

Dwight VanDriver said:

To some extent I am with VH on this.

I find it incredible with so much available to report that an Officer would stop and report someone not committing an offence, go to Court, commit perjury, lose his job for a tuppence halfpenny offence.

I cannot of course deny that was the case as only the Officer and driver involved can confirm.

dvd

I'm not calling the officer a liar, i also believe that he genuinely thinks he seen me on a mobile phone however this is not the case, but i know he has made a mistake, there are two major errors in his statement to prove this, these are the points that i will be high lighting to the court, using them as the angle of defence to prove that i am innocent. Once we completed our statements and if was "off the record if you like" the officer in question admitted that he was still quite new to the job, and thats why i think his superior refused to look at my car and my call register on my mobile phone.

I will be serving my own defence, and cross examining the officer myself, i will be making it clear that i am disputing if or not if he thinks he is right, but i will be asking him to admit that he has made another mistake. I don't for one minute think he is committing perjury or do i think he is putting his job at risk.

[R.E.J.S]

herewego said:

ukwill said:

vonhosen said:

Jasandjules said:

vonhosen said:

I've got three mobiles myself, which one do you want the records for today ?

All of them of course. That way we can eliminate them as not receiving a call at the requisite time, thus negating the offence.

Yeah but if someone turns up at court having requested the details of just one & produces those as evidence that they weren't on the phone, that doesn't mean they weren't on 'a' phone.

So as the accused, you could happily say in court that you and your passenger would be happy for the Police to request access to both your phone records for the time/date relevant to the "offence".

I think the magistrates would look on this favourably - it would show that you were happy to co-operate and didn't have anything to hide. You could also easily prove how many live mobile phone contracts you had at that time, thus negating the implication that you could be on "another" phone. That kind of insinuation from the prosecution would sound a tad desperate to my mind.

No contracts with pay as you go.

One big error the officer has made is, he made no attempt to look at my call register and he did not check what handset were in the car at the time.

Edited by R.E.J.S on Monday 21st April 11:16

[R.E.J.S]

Mg6b said:

R.E.J.S said:

One big error the officer has made is, he made no attempt to look at my call register and he did not check what handset were in the car at the time.

Edited by R.E.J.S on Monday 21st April 11:16

Not a big error.
Short of searching you and the vehicle for evidence of such devices, a power for which he did not have at that point, the fact he did not know how many phone devices were in the car is irrelevant.

His evidence of seeing you using a phone is what is important.
Your evidence that you were not is equally as important.
The magistrates will have to make up their minds about the facts and then decide whether there is enough from the officer to substantiate convicting you of the offence.

I have 2 mobile phones. One of them might be surrendered if someone asks me to do so. The other might not!

He did have the power to search my car as i give him numerous opportunities to do so, but he refused every time i asked him to take a look. Your quite correct in that he could not just search my car just because he felt like it, but i was giving permission to do so. The magistrates have to consider their verdict based on evidence from both parties, the fact that when i was under caution and giving a statement he did not make a record of what devices were in the vehicle at the time could cause a few problems with the officers evidence because where is the Court going to start with obtaining my mobile phone records if they do not know exactly which handsets were present at the time (mine,my passengers etc..)

I have been totally transparent with my evidence, i offered to clear the matter up at the scene by showing the Officer's my mobile phone, my installed telephone system and i offered to let them search the car to prove that i was not on the phone. I also have a clean licence so 3 points and a £40 is know going to cause me to many problems so if i was guilty why would i go to all this trouble? The fact of the matter is i am innocent and hopefully the magistrates will see that i have nothing to hide and that the Police Officer has simply made a mistake.

Purely on principal i am prepared to appeal at Crown Court should i be convicted for this alleged offence.

Thank you all, for your continued support.

[R.E.J.S]

The Verdict!!!!!!

First off all thanks to you all for your support!!!!!

As you all know i was summons to Court today, my hearing time was at 2pm. As i have said all along i never committed the offence of driving whilst on a mobile phone.

The main contributing factors that had in my defence was that my vehicle was factory fitted with a hands free car kit, i had a witness to back up that i was not using a handheld phone, the officer who reported me for the offence was new to the job, he, his colleague and his superior refused to look at my call register of my phone, they refused to search my car when i offered them to for them to inspect my handsfree system, the Police officers in question were traveling in the opposite direction, under a bridge and at approx 30 M.P.H. I was armed with a document from Mercedes Benz explaining the instalation and operations of the handsfree system in my car.

One other point that i have not disclosed on here before until now is that when the Police Officer was trying to give me a ticket he said to me that i would receive 6 points for the offence if found guilty (as you all know the penalty is 3 points for this offence)
so i let the Police Officer think he was correct in what he was saying and i point blank refused to accept a ticket there and then for this alledged offence.. then when it came to statement time and when i was under caution while he was writing every word down we both said, he wrote

" i am reporting you for the offence of driving on a handheld telephone"

i replied "WHAT IS THE FIXED PENALTY FOR THAT?"

he said " 6 points"

i replied "NO IT IS NOT THE FIXED PENALTY FOR THAT OFFENCE IS 3 POINTS"

and this point he flicked his book of points and prizes and realised that i was indeed correct, he then apologised and said he had made a mistake(which obviously put me in a great situation,as i then reminded him that i was under caution and i had already signed 2 pages of statements and i insisted that he recorded this in his statement which went like this:-

" i apologise i have made a mistake and i have mis read my book"

my response " YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE ABOUT THAT AND YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE ABOUT ME BEING ON A HANDHELD TELEPHONE, I HAVE OFFERED YOU AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO INSPECT MY VEHICLE AND MY CALL REGISTER TO CONFIRM THAT I WAS NOT USING A TELEPHONE, HANDHELD OR OTHERWISE, I HAVE A PASSENGER IN THE VEHICLE WHO WILL CO OPERATE AND HE WILL EXPOSE HIS MOBILE TELEPHONE TO CLEAR THIS MATTER UP, IF THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU TO ADMIT YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE ABOUT ME USING A HANDHELD PHONE I WILL MAKE NO FURTHER COMMENT!"

There was then another series of questions for which i refused to comment.

So as i'm sure you will agree i had a strong defence and i was really looking forward to seeing my new found friend again today in court at 2pm where i could ask him some prepared questions in the court room, however at exactly 1.30 this afternoon i recieve a telephone call which went like this:-

" Mr Smith?"

"YES WHO'S CALLING?"

" Dave Summner, i'm the Legal Advisor from the Magistrates court"

"O.K?" ( at this point i'm boiling thinking he is phoning to adjourn)

" You have a hearing this afternoon at 2 p.m is that right?"

"YES"

" Well you don't to come now"

"WHY"

" They are withdrawing the case, we have read through the statements, and taken into account your plea (not guilty) and the case has been withdrawn, we have advised the Police Officer of this and you dont need to worry the matter is finished with"

"RIGHT O.K, SO THATS IT THEN, WELL THATS GOOD NEWS, BY WHY HAS IT GONE THIS FAR BEFORE IT'S THROWN OUT?"

He then went on to explain the in and outs of the Court procedure, which took about 10 minutes and i'll will spare you all the boring stuff.

Me being me, i phoned the Court back a bit later and checked the caller's credentials and clarified with another member of staff that the matter was finsihed. I have had to go to the court to sign a document and that's it NOT GUILTY!!!!!! (then again i always was!!!!)

Thanks everyone


Richard