should i have hired a solicitor?
Discussion
Let me make my stance clear. If wrongly accused then I am all for the fight and also hate sloppiness in case preparation and presentation which seems to be a disease with CPS.
We shall never know what went wrong, if anything did, in the case DM reports as the evidence was not tested.
As to evidence of "experts" child abuse cases springs to mind. For every so called expert, for a pouch of shillings, counter one can be found. IOLAIRE, as a Motor Engineer will be well aware of this. What probably happened was that CPS knew they had to prove the case beyond any reasonable doubt so rather than involve extra expense threw the towel in. As to being a precedent - no. Case law is made at High Court, but nevertheless a Mags Court decision can be commented on but does not have the strength or weight of Case Law.
Outlined are cases by Shoodie and IOLAIRE where the prosecutor has not been in a position to go ahead,(sloppiness in the later,) in which case a submission can always be made that he should have been so and as he wasn't for the case to be thrown out.
Going back to Shoodie case. As I understand it he returned the statement of facts forms indicating a Guilty plea. As a result when Court date occurred Clerk, on the strength of a GP, would have the Court deal with the case without prosecution imput. He simply would read the facts from the Statement of facts and Mags pronounce the penalty.
But the works were gummed up when plea changed to one of Not Guilty. Mags. would then adjourn the case to the other date mention at which time, I would suspect, CPS will attend with all guns blazing, evidence etc for which they may well claim costs if successful.
So in my book the battle has not been won, far from it, it hasn't started yet so beware of any complacency.
For them to throw the towel in now would lead to the creation of an avenue to attempt a loophole in speed offences.
Interesting nevertheless and wait full report at the end of the case.
DVD
>> Edited by Dwight VanDriver on Tuesday 7th December 15:11
We shall never know what went wrong, if anything did, in the case DM reports as the evidence was not tested.
As to evidence of "experts" child abuse cases springs to mind. For every so called expert, for a pouch of shillings, counter one can be found. IOLAIRE, as a Motor Engineer will be well aware of this. What probably happened was that CPS knew they had to prove the case beyond any reasonable doubt so rather than involve extra expense threw the towel in. As to being a precedent - no. Case law is made at High Court, but nevertheless a Mags Court decision can be commented on but does not have the strength or weight of Case Law.
Outlined are cases by Shoodie and IOLAIRE where the prosecutor has not been in a position to go ahead,(sloppiness in the later,) in which case a submission can always be made that he should have been so and as he wasn't for the case to be thrown out.
Going back to Shoodie case. As I understand it he returned the statement of facts forms indicating a Guilty plea. As a result when Court date occurred Clerk, on the strength of a GP, would have the Court deal with the case without prosecution imput. He simply would read the facts from the Statement of facts and Mags pronounce the penalty.
But the works were gummed up when plea changed to one of Not Guilty. Mags. would then adjourn the case to the other date mention at which time, I would suspect, CPS will attend with all guns blazing, evidence etc for which they may well claim costs if successful.
So in my book the battle has not been won, far from it, it hasn't started yet so beware of any complacency.
For them to throw the towel in now would lead to the creation of an avenue to attempt a loophole in speed offences.
Interesting nevertheless and wait full report at the end of the case.
DVD
>> Edited by Dwight VanDriver on Tuesday 7th December 15:11
Section 89 (2)Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984
A person prosecuted for a speeding offence shall not be liable to be convicted SOLEY on the evidence of one witness to the effect that, in the opinion of the witness, the person prosecuted was driving the vehicle
at a speed exceeding a specified limit.
....which means corroboration needed. In the simplest form PC forms opinion vehicle travelling at what appears fast speed and speedometer/Vascar of patrol car confirms......
DVD
A person prosecuted for a speeding offence shall not be liable to be convicted SOLEY on the evidence of one witness to the effect that, in the opinion of the witness, the person prosecuted was driving the vehicle
at a speed exceeding a specified limit.
....which means corroboration needed. In the simplest form PC forms opinion vehicle travelling at what appears fast speed and speedometer/Vascar of patrol car confirms......
DVD
Thanks DVD for your regular input.
Now I actually believe I was doing no more than 95mph. My partner was with me and she, in her experience, judges the car to be travelling around 90mph.
So now what? The police officer alleges me to be doing 107mph based on the reading of his VASCAR.
So how did that come about?
Is he right or are we?
If he is wrong and his VASCAR was indeed calibrated then why would he get my speed wrong? Was there any other genuine human error, or could it have been deliberate?
What I'm actually asking is was what in it for the lone police officer to book me that day, apart from the genuine concern for the safety of other road users?
I'm trying to get into the mind of the police officer here...
Now I actually believe I was doing no more than 95mph. My partner was with me and she, in her experience, judges the car to be travelling around 90mph.
So now what? The police officer alleges me to be doing 107mph based on the reading of his VASCAR.
So how did that come about?
Is he right or are we?
If he is wrong and his VASCAR was indeed calibrated then why would he get my speed wrong? Was there any other genuine human error, or could it have been deliberate?
What I'm actually asking is was what in it for the lone police officer to book me that day, apart from the genuine concern for the safety of other road users?
I'm trying to get into the mind of the police officer here...
0.4 miles isn't a lot you know.
If there was no video kit, then you have a bib pressing a button twice, once for each travel over a road marker.
Now if you have a descrepancy of half a second on each button push, you can have an error of about 1 second.
Not a lot in itself, but it is over the short distance. His true speed could be anything from 99MPH to 112MPH.
Once carries a ban, the other doesn't. All on a button push. A video camera runs at 50FieldsPS (or 25 FramesPS). That would have made inaccuracies negligible.
If there was no video kit, then you have a bib pressing a button twice, once for each travel over a road marker.
Now if you have a descrepancy of half a second on each button push, you can have an error of about 1 second.
Not a lot in itself, but it is over the short distance. His true speed could be anything from 99MPH to 112MPH.
Once carries a ban, the other doesn't. All on a button push. A video camera runs at 50FieldsPS (or 25 FramesPS). That would have made inaccuracies negligible.
shoodie said:
Thanks DVD for your regular input.
Now I actually believe I was doing no more than 95mph. My partner was with me and she, in her experience, judges the car to be travelling around 90mph.
So now what? The police officer alleges me to be doing 107mph based on the reading of his VASCAR.
So how did that come about?
Is he right or are we?
If he is wrong and his VASCAR was indeed calibrated then why would he get my speed wrong? Was there any other genuine human error, or could it have been deliberate?
What I'm actually asking is was what in it for the lone police officer to book me that day, apart from the genuine concern for the safety of other road users?
I'm trying to get into the mind of the police officer here...
Shoodie, you must try and keep your mind on the fact that the onus of proof is on the crown, not you.
Let the crown worry about whether the police were right or not, it is solely 100% their responsibility to do so.
Now I'll tell you why I think in the main that cases similar to yours are not legally acceptable, regardless of what DVD or any other officer may think.
In your case the officer would observe you coming towards his vehicle which is partially hidden; that in itself makes his viewing restricted.
Now he is making a calculation, by his own assertion, using a known distance, not by following you and using the VASCAR on the move. This means he has already entered the distance between two datum points into the VASCAR. All the VASCAR has to then do, is calculate the time it takes you to go from point A to point B and it then instantly calculates your speed. Dead simple, dead straightforward, except for one vitally important detail.
This time is totally dependant on the officer hitting the button at the right time, twice!
He can't do that accurately, particulalry on his own, and I'm sorry DVD and all you other chaps out there who claim you can but I'll prove why it's inaccurate.
Let's assume the officer had his vehicle exactly in line with the first datum point; in other words, he could clearly see, let's say your front bumper, going past the point and make the first entry. What chances are there even from such a perfect viewpoint as that of him getting it dead right? Now I'm being generous with this guy here because we know he was actually up on a bridge.
If you assume that the average vehicle length is 14 Feet, then at 107 MPH your vehicle is doing approximately 12 car lengths a SECOND!! Even at 70 it is still about 9 car lengths. Think it is still accurate?
But it gets worse, because when he attempts the second input he has the extreme disadvantage of perspective distortion, in this case 0.4 of a mile, 704 yards.
Imagine the length of three motorway markers times two and a half, and he reckons he can accurately observe the front bumper of your vehicle, travelling at 12 lengths a second passing this point!!
Sorry, just not plausible.
If he even manages to input the rear bumper passing the point it means the calculation is two car lengths out. Are you starting to see the problem here?
What I have done in court to reinforce these points is to use the back page of the Highway Code and the stopping distance chart.
You can see this is made up of two sections, thinking distance and reaction. After you spot a hazard there is a thinking time before your mind can get your body to move and hit the brake pedal. Now bear in mind in an emergency you will react a damn site quicker because of the shock and instant adrenalin rush than you would when calm and just doing a job.
In the case of perspective, have you ever followed a nice black car, for example what appeared to be a gleaming Volvo V90, and saw the signal come on to turn left, and as it swings round the corner you realise with surprise that it's a limo and it's almost twice the length of a standard car.
You have no idea what the length of that vehicle is because it's travelling away from you so you have no perspective view; the real danger is if someone asked you what length it was while observing from the rear and you owned one yourself, you would instantly reply 14 feet or whatever the length was; and you would be totally inaccurate.
Almost every VASCAR calculation made is flawed because of this problem of perspective, and of course it becomes totally irrelevant how well calibrated the VASCAR is, that's why in cases like these I get so seriously miffed when the prosecution, usually with a confident flourish, produces a "Test Certificate".
Now whilst DVD is correct in saying that the battle is far from won, although I don't know why he said it, because I certainly didn't imply it, if the CPS want to continue and come in to court with "all guns blazing", let them blaze away.
From what you have just learned on here, you are a damned site more qualified to argue the point than they are; so just keep your cool head on and simply state your case.
I totally disagree with you DVD about a loophole; this is not about exploiting or creating a loophole; it's about stating the evidence is unacceptable and below the standard of that required for a safe conviction.
If it is recognised that there are many similar cases that can be defended on the same basis, then that has not created a loophole, it is merely a recognition of the unacceptable standard of the procedural evidence.
>> Edited by IOLAIRE on Tuesday 7th December 18:38
In the case DeMolay raised at the time I castigated West Yorks Plod and the CPS for sloppy case preparation. They failed to do one of the most basic parts of any prosecution case, ie examine the evidence to see if it is correct, investigate possible defences, it might just be that you find the accused is in fact innocent. Near enough is not good enough, it has to be right. A similar case years ago ended up proven because in that case West Yorks did the homework.
Turning to Iolaire's argument about perspective whilst I follow the logic, as one might expect I don't fully agree.
According to my calculation to get the measured speed of 107.2 mph down to say 93.3 then if one button press is as near as dammit cock-on then the other button press has to be two seconds out.
If you assume equal errors at start/finish then both button presses have to be out by one second each. Consider also that in this case the first press would have to be a whole second late, and the second one a whole second early.
Park on a bridge and try it with a stop watch. Just see how long a second is, never mind two seconds ..........
Turning to Iolaire's argument about perspective whilst I follow the logic, as one might expect I don't fully agree.
According to my calculation to get the measured speed of 107.2 mph down to say 93.3 then if one button press is as near as dammit cock-on then the other button press has to be two seconds out.
If you assume equal errors at start/finish then both button presses have to be out by one second each. Consider also that in this case the first press would have to be a whole second late, and the second one a whole second early.
Park on a bridge and try it with a stop watch. Just see how long a second is, never mind two seconds ..........
I'm sorry, but it is amazing how accurate you can get with a stopwatch, which is essentially what plod is doing with Vascar.
When clocking lap times of my son whilst he is racing, it is uncanny how close the stopwatch recorded times are compared to his onboard data logging equipment. The times recorded are triggered by a beacon placed on the pit wall.
However, I am always suspicious of plod with a vascar, cos that same accuracy can be used to press the buttons either a bit late or early and give an 'optimistic' reading. Great for getting your figures up, and even better, it is allowed as factual evidence.
Bollokcs
When clocking lap times of my son whilst he is racing, it is uncanny how close the stopwatch recorded times are compared to his onboard data logging equipment. The times recorded are triggered by a beacon placed on the pit wall.
However, I am always suspicious of plod with a vascar, cos that same accuracy can be used to press the buttons either a bit late or early and give an 'optimistic' reading. Great for getting your figures up, and even better, it is allowed as factual evidence.
Bollokcs
andygo said:
I'm sorry, but it is amazing how accurate you can get with a stopwatch, which is essentially what plod is doing with Vascar.
That's my point, obviously didn't explain myself. Two seconds out due to chance operational errors is just not feasible in my very honest opinion.
Of course two deliberate seconds out appears to be believed by the sad subscribers to conspiracy and corruption theories.
Flat in Fifth said:
I'm sorry, but it is amazing how accurate you can get with a stopwatch, which is essentially what plod is doing with Vascar.
That's my point, obviously didn't explain myself. Two seconds out due to chance operational errors is just not feasible in my very honest opinion.
Of course two deliberate seconds out appears to be believed by the sad subscribers to conspiracy and corruption theories.
FiF, that is the whole point.
In none of this did I claim nor even imply that this officer lied, cheated, was incompetent or inaccurate. Nor did I at any time suggest that Shoodie go into court and imply that either.
As the case stands at the moment there is no way whatever to prove that he did his job properly, he has no corroborative evidence, right now he can only stand up and say what he did, he can't show or prove a thing; in other words, he could invent anything.
It doesn't matter whether or not he did, it's the fact that this situation is highly possible that makes it unacceptable as evidence, particularly stand alone evidence.
I have found since I started getting involved in the law some thirty years ago, a disturbing, and in some cases absolute, disregard for the philosophy of justice in courts.
A great many judges and certainly numerous numbers of prosecutors seem to think it acceptable to prosecute motorists on evidence that would be totally unacceptable in any other criminal trial; they accept the evidence of police officers who have used a detection device and assume it must be accurate or suitable because it's approved by the Home Secretary.
The same Home Secretary who puts the laws in place to prosecute you in the first place!
I can remember as a boy my father talking about how the Government were using Criminal Law to prosecute motorists with no criminal intent; and how it would escalate if they weren't stopped, and I really didn't appreciate what he meant then simply due to my youth.
My God, how prophetic was he; stop and think, how bad is this really going to get before we stop these people?
Just read the posts on this site alone, what an indictment of our society!
All of you would-be defenders of the status quo please explain to me, regardless of the statutes, what it is that Shoodie, and all the thousands of others just like him, have done morally or criminally that warrants them even being stopped, let alone prosecuted for a criminal offence; a crime against his fellow men.
Insanity!!
Whilst IOLAIRE makes reference to inaccuracy in timing due to the "reaction" factor - the time taken from seeing the need to take action to the time actually taken - I would point out that in Vascar this is anticipated as the vehicle reaches a point of reference, change in road surface, shadow cast from an object striking the car etc. Not a guestimate. So it is virtually simultaneous, any error factor miniscule.
Would any serving Traffic BiB that operates Vascar device of T and S.S. dig out the paperwork that came with the set. There used to be a chart showing the effect of errors in timing/distance in relation to mph and post some of these. Surprising how little differnence these errors made to average speed. (Too old in the tooth now to sit down with caculator and work out).
DVD
Would any serving Traffic BiB that operates Vascar device of T and S.S. dig out the paperwork that came with the set. There used to be a chart showing the effect of errors in timing/distance in relation to mph and post some of these. Surprising how little differnence these errors made to average speed. (Too old in the tooth now to sit down with caculator and work out).
DVD
Sitting firmly in DVD's corner here as I think the timing errors are miniscule and not highly possible.
Iolaire you make a big thing of the lack of secondary proof, I presume you mean a camera or video footage. Do you really mean that?
OK so where does this stop? i.e. nobody takes the spoken evidence of a bib anymore without backup footage.
So you see someone shoot a red light narrowly missing a school minibus. Bit of a beggar if lack of a video prevents a nicking.
Iolaire you make a big thing of the lack of secondary proof, I presume you mean a camera or video footage. Do you really mean that?
OK so where does this stop? i.e. nobody takes the spoken evidence of a bib anymore without backup footage.
So you see someone shoot a red light narrowly missing a school minibus. Bit of a beggar if lack of a video prevents a nicking.
Police operating VASCAR are required to attend a training course in which they show that they have been trained to a sufficient degree that they are accurate to whithin a very small margin of error.
It is pointless (in my opinion) to try and argue with the speed measured. You will get more joy arguing that the officer hasn't been trained in it (which, as I understand it, happens from time-to-time).
I maintain that being stopped by two officers using VASCAR is the hardest charge to wriggle out of on Britain's roads.
It is pointless (in my opinion) to try and argue with the speed measured. You will get more joy arguing that the officer hasn't been trained in it (which, as I understand it, happens from time-to-time).
I maintain that being stopped by two officers using VASCAR is the hardest charge to wriggle out of on Britain's roads.
The extra effort required in answering most of these questions because people do not read the posts correctly becomes increasingly irritating.
Where in this case does it say Shoodie was stopped by two officers? One of the most important aspects of this is that there was only one officer; NO CORROBORATION!!!! Does everyone understand this now?
You make the same error as most of the police officers I have dealt with over the years DVD, who assume they are an expert on VASCAR or maintain that they have exclusive right over the knowledge and usage of it.
You don't need to bring any serving traffic BiB to give you the information; I'll do it, and more.
For all you "non-BiB", TSS stands for Traffic Safety Sytems, the company who produced the VASCAR systems fitted to most police vehicles, in fact at the time I dealt with them they had exclusive supply rights to the British Police and were supplying in many other countries.
Just think about that, they supplied every single VASCAR unit fitted in all the police vehicles.
They wrote the instructions DVD refers to that make the claim that any inaccuracies are "miniscule" and that their system is positively the last word in a prosecution tool to totally bludgeon the motorist into passive acceptance of their alledged speed.
Now forgive me for being just a tad cynical, but it seems to me that TSS might just have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy myth.
This company was started by an old Jewish exWW2 radar "expert": as Ted has a policy here of not naming and shaming, let's just call him Dr X.
It was during the defence of one of the most blatant misuses of this equipment that I have come across that I decided to dig my heels in and find out exactly what was going on.
It took no less than two separate court injunctions to firstly permit me to examine the police vehicle that this unit was fitted to and secondly to obtain the name and address of this company.
After FIVE WEEKS of attempting to get them to respond to me with technical information and being totally and deliberately ignored, I sent in the Bailiffs with a citation for the Chief Engineer of the company to appear as a technical witness at the trial.
I got an instant phone call from Dr X who was very polite and gave me some detail about his background and how he ensured every unit was manufactured to a very high standard, etc.
He claimed that his motivation behind the supply of these units was because, and I quote, "people are so rude on the roads nowadays, I feel that this helps to put them in their place."
I just could not think of a reply to that one.
He then stated that he had never appeared for the defence but regularly appeared for the Crown as a technical witness.
He charged, wait for it, £600 for an appearance providing, "I'm not on the stand for any longer than 30 minutes because I get quite tired."
He then said he had never been to Scotland so would have to stay overnight in a hotel and would of course have train fares on top of that, and this is the final bombshell, "because you see, I don't drive!"
I told him I would manage without him.
During the trial the Sergeant who was the driver of the police vehicle claimed that the target car had overtook him "at high speed" and then he pursued it and used the VASCAR to detect the speed.
He claimed that the first marker used was the shadow of a bridge across the bonnet of the target car, which he also claimed was roughly three hundred feet ahead.
He then asserted that the second marker was unbelievably a cat's eye.
I asked him to explain to the court what a shadow was and was met with a silly, sarcastic smirk slowly fading as it was explained to him that the alledged offence had taken place at 10 PM on a winter's night in total darkness, no shadows. He couldn't explain it.
When I asked him which cat's eye he had used he couldn't explain that either, despite the fact that he would have had to have got that dead right twice, once for the target car and again for the police vehicle; and he only had the choice of some hundreds of thousands of them.
I then asked him to explain why he had deliberately refused to show the accused the video tape of the incident in the police vehicle despite being asked to do so by the accused on no less than three occasions.
He couldn't explain this.
I then asked him why he had, by his own admission, deliberately ERASED the video when he got back to the station. He said it was "standard procedure".
The second officer, who by the time of the trial was in the stolen car squad, was completely truthful.
He stated that the Sergeant had been patrolling the M80 at "high speed" looking for speeders, (50MPH limit)
He had spotted the target car and came upon it "very fast".
He couldn't remember the datum points used but agreed that it couldn't have been an overhead gantry because there was no shadow at night.
He agreed that there might have been inaccuracy in the calculation.
He said he took no part in the deletion of the video and had personally never deleted a video himself.
The magistrate was a silly little woman of limited intelligence and even more limited common sense who thought the police were wonderful; she actually stated this in the middle of the trial!
She found the accused guilty; I took it to appeal and won instantly.
Accuracy, integrity, honesty?; I don't know what else to say DVD.
DeMolay said:
I maintain that being stopped by two officers using VASCAR is the hardest charge to wriggle out of on Britain's roads.
Where in this case does it say Shoodie was stopped by two officers? One of the most important aspects of this is that there was only one officer; NO CORROBORATION!!!! Does everyone understand this now?
Dwight VanDriver said:
Whilst IOLAIRE makes reference to inaccuracy in timing due to the "reaction" factor - the time taken from seeing the need to take action to the time actually taken - I would point out that in Vascar this is anticipated as the vehicle reaches a point of reference, change in road surface, shadow cast from an object striking the car etc. Not a guestimate. So it is virtually simultaneous, any error factor miniscule.
Would any serving Traffic BiB that operates Vascar device of T and S.S. dig out the paperwork that came with the set. There used to be a chart showing the effect of errors in timing/distance in relation to mph and post some of these. Surprising how little differnence these errors made to average speed. (Too old in the tooth now to sit down with caculator and work out).
DVD
You make the same error as most of the police officers I have dealt with over the years DVD, who assume they are an expert on VASCAR or maintain that they have exclusive right over the knowledge and usage of it.
You don't need to bring any serving traffic BiB to give you the information; I'll do it, and more.
For all you "non-BiB", TSS stands for Traffic Safety Sytems, the company who produced the VASCAR systems fitted to most police vehicles, in fact at the time I dealt with them they had exclusive supply rights to the British Police and were supplying in many other countries.
Just think about that, they supplied every single VASCAR unit fitted in all the police vehicles.
They wrote the instructions DVD refers to that make the claim that any inaccuracies are "miniscule" and that their system is positively the last word in a prosecution tool to totally bludgeon the motorist into passive acceptance of their alledged speed.
Now forgive me for being just a tad cynical, but it seems to me that TSS might just have a vested interest in maintaining the accuracy myth.
This company was started by an old Jewish exWW2 radar "expert": as Ted has a policy here of not naming and shaming, let's just call him Dr X.
It was during the defence of one of the most blatant misuses of this equipment that I have come across that I decided to dig my heels in and find out exactly what was going on.
It took no less than two separate court injunctions to firstly permit me to examine the police vehicle that this unit was fitted to and secondly to obtain the name and address of this company.
After FIVE WEEKS of attempting to get them to respond to me with technical information and being totally and deliberately ignored, I sent in the Bailiffs with a citation for the Chief Engineer of the company to appear as a technical witness at the trial.
I got an instant phone call from Dr X who was very polite and gave me some detail about his background and how he ensured every unit was manufactured to a very high standard, etc.
He claimed that his motivation behind the supply of these units was because, and I quote, "people are so rude on the roads nowadays, I feel that this helps to put them in their place."
I just could not think of a reply to that one.
He then stated that he had never appeared for the defence but regularly appeared for the Crown as a technical witness.
He charged, wait for it, £600 for an appearance providing, "I'm not on the stand for any longer than 30 minutes because I get quite tired."
He then said he had never been to Scotland so would have to stay overnight in a hotel and would of course have train fares on top of that, and this is the final bombshell, "because you see, I don't drive!"
I told him I would manage without him.
During the trial the Sergeant who was the driver of the police vehicle claimed that the target car had overtook him "at high speed" and then he pursued it and used the VASCAR to detect the speed.
He claimed that the first marker used was the shadow of a bridge across the bonnet of the target car, which he also claimed was roughly three hundred feet ahead.
He then asserted that the second marker was unbelievably a cat's eye.
I asked him to explain to the court what a shadow was and was met with a silly, sarcastic smirk slowly fading as it was explained to him that the alledged offence had taken place at 10 PM on a winter's night in total darkness, no shadows. He couldn't explain it.
When I asked him which cat's eye he had used he couldn't explain that either, despite the fact that he would have had to have got that dead right twice, once for the target car and again for the police vehicle; and he only had the choice of some hundreds of thousands of them.
I then asked him to explain why he had deliberately refused to show the accused the video tape of the incident in the police vehicle despite being asked to do so by the accused on no less than three occasions.
He couldn't explain this.
I then asked him why he had, by his own admission, deliberately ERASED the video when he got back to the station. He said it was "standard procedure".
The second officer, who by the time of the trial was in the stolen car squad, was completely truthful.
He stated that the Sergeant had been patrolling the M80 at "high speed" looking for speeders, (50MPH limit)
He had spotted the target car and came upon it "very fast".
He couldn't remember the datum points used but agreed that it couldn't have been an overhead gantry because there was no shadow at night.
He agreed that there might have been inaccuracy in the calculation.
He said he took no part in the deletion of the video and had personally never deleted a video himself.
The magistrate was a silly little woman of limited intelligence and even more limited common sense who thought the police were wonderful; she actually stated this in the middle of the trial!
She found the accused guilty; I took it to appeal and won instantly.
Accuracy, integrity, honesty?; I don't know what else to say DVD.
Dwight VanDriver said:
IOLAIRE stated : I don't know what else to say DVD.
Say nothing, lets leave it at that- agree to disagree and stop boring the pants off the rest of the Forum..
DVD
PS. Where have I ever claimed to be an expert?. Not nice to belittle Magistrates with such a comment I. very naughty.
So now you're a spokesman for the whole forum?
I can tell you DVD from the responses I get, very few people find this boring believe me.
And the magistrate needed no help from me to belittle herself, believe me.
I am going to leave this, I simply don't have the time any more to spend on it, all I would ask is that anyone interested in this keeps a wide open mind.
I must say I have read this thread with considerable interest. I do think IOLAIRE is raising interesting factual questions which our friends from the bib are not really answering.
Certainly, I would now recommend looking much more closely at the police statements before pleading guilty.
I am interested in the comments that the reading are taken between 2 fixed points, but how is the distance between these points measured. I assume they are measured using the mileage indicator of the car. But how reliable is this???
What sort of points are chosen. Some body earlier says a shadow but surly this would not be used as a shadow is a moving object. If the object is to the side of the moving vehicle I would agree there is plenty of possibilities for error. This is not like on a track where you can clock a car using a stop watch with accuracy because you always see it and the timing mark in the same perspective. This is not the case with a car moving towards you.
It strikes me that the use of the this instrument to measure your speed and claim the results are accurate should be worth a challenging. I note in the original post the prosecution claimed a speed of 107.2. This is clearly a ridiculous level of accuracy to claim. I think it would be fairly easy to establish that the reading could be +/- 10%. But guess they do not want to say between 97 and 117 as it would underline the potential inaccuracies. But for the motorist this can make the difference between points and a ban.
Certainly, I would now recommend looking much more closely at the police statements before pleading guilty.
I am interested in the comments that the reading are taken between 2 fixed points, but how is the distance between these points measured. I assume they are measured using the mileage indicator of the car. But how reliable is this???
What sort of points are chosen. Some body earlier says a shadow but surly this would not be used as a shadow is a moving object. If the object is to the side of the moving vehicle I would agree there is plenty of possibilities for error. This is not like on a track where you can clock a car using a stop watch with accuracy because you always see it and the timing mark in the same perspective. This is not the case with a car moving towards you.
It strikes me that the use of the this instrument to measure your speed and claim the results are accurate should be worth a challenging. I note in the original post the prosecution claimed a speed of 107.2. This is clearly a ridiculous level of accuracy to claim. I think it would be fairly easy to establish that the reading could be +/- 10%. But guess they do not want to say between 97 and 117 as it would underline the potential inaccuracies. But for the motorist this can make the difference between points and a ban.
In response to IOLAIRE's point about corroboration, surely this is provided by the Vascar unit?
I accept that there is perhaps no "physical" evidence in this case, such as a video. I should also state I am not trained in Vascar (so consequently don't use it), but I understand that the 2 week course in my Force is pretty intense, and it is Pass or fail, not just attendance.
The course includes theory and practical use of all modes of operation, and each is tested. If a candidate doesn'tpass each single assessment, they#re not qualified.
I accept that there is perhaps no "physical" evidence in this case, such as a video. I should also state I am not trained in Vascar (so consequently don't use it), but I understand that the 2 week course in my Force is pretty intense, and it is Pass or fail, not just attendance.
The course includes theory and practical use of all modes of operation, and each is tested. If a candidate doesn'tpass each single assessment, they#re not qualified.
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