Police Pilot - Not Type Approved
Discussion
I think its made by ProVida.
See: www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/opration.htm
Unfortunately, there's no date on the page.
See: www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/opration.htm
Unfortunately, there's no date on the page.
ukspeedtraps said:
Basically if a piece of equipment does not have Home office Approval they should not be using it, as in the recent case in Scotland where the Police have been using a system called "PolicePilot" which had not been given approval, it was challenged in court.
Legal experts said the admission casts doubt on previous cases in Scotland involving the device. Ken Dalling, a Stirling solicitor, said: "This case is likely to cause a lot of people who have accepted their convictions to give further consideration to their position. It means that all the convictions over the past four or five years based on this device may be unsafe."
Tonyrec said:
The reason that i know this is because last year sometime, the Approval had to be shown at Mags Court.
Well, I hope it wasn't you that showed it, Tony, perjury is a serious offence.
Tonyrec said:
In the Met we use Police Pilot and i can assure you that it is Home Office Approved.
<...>
For the recored....its the same as Vascar...both superb pieces of kit.
Since I made the original post, I've done a bit of digging and it appears that neither Police Pilot nor Vascar are Home Office type approved, although, they are ACPO approved, which is not the same thing.
From the ACPO guidelines , dated March 2003 (1.75 MB pdf),
1) They are not in the list of Home Office approved devices (from page 92 onwards).
2) From 1.5 What is the advantage of Home Office Type Approval?
In fact some devices, such as Vascar, Police Pilot and Provida 2000 do not have Home Office Type Approval. Instead, these time/distance devices are ACPO approved.
Neither are they in Speedmetes (sic) Type Approved by the Secretary of State for Police Use, the latest entry in which is 11th March 1994.
Tonyrec said:
Ive done some searching and its only shown as an 'Approved Device'.
This has however been tried and tested in the highest Courts and has been proven to be sufficient.
Do you have details of the case(s)?
monkeyhanger said:
Something along lines of it got approval for England and they assumed it applied to Scotland too, but seperate approval was needed under Scottish Law.
This is not quite right, because, as above, Police Pilot is not type approved in England either.
Also, do you reacall whether it got as far as a Scottish superior court, or was it just the District Court?
jeffreyarcher said:
Ive done some searching and its only shown as an 'Approved Device'.
This has however been tried and tested in the highest Courts and has been proven to be sufficient.
Do you have details of the case(s)?
monkeyhanger said:
Something along lines of it got approval for England and they assumed it applied to Scotland too, but seperate approval was needed under Scottish Law.
This is not quite right, because, as above, Police Pilot is not type approved in England either.
Also, do you reacall whether it got as far as a Scottish superior court, or was it just the District Court?
I can't remember the exact details, but i'm almost certain it was something to do with the differences between Scots & English law. Or at least the "approval" (or otherwise) processes North & South of the border...
Maybe a bit of Googling will yield results
monkeyhanger said:
Maybe a bit of Googling will yield results
It did.
See Beldirect.
It's a shame it's not been updated since 1999 though.
moneyhanger said:
I can't remember the exact details, but i'm almost certain it was something to do with the differences between Scots & English law. Or at least the "approval" (or otherwise) processes North & South of the border.
Beldirect said:
A question mark hangs over speeding convictions after James McDonald, who was fined £350, appealed to the High Court arguing that the speed detection system did not appear on a list of prescribed devices approved by the Secretary of State for Scotland in the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, and evidence from it was therefore inadmissible. Before the case could be heard the prosecution agreed to the setting aside of the conviction (The Telegraph, Richard Savill, 2 August 1999)
<...>
<...>the 1999 Scottish case where the police failed to make a prosecution stick when they implied that using the Police Pilot must be legal ‘because they’d been using if for years’,<...>
Interesting, it looked like the prosecution bottled it before the appeal; presumably in case they lost a binding precedent.
>> Edited by jeffreyarcher on Tuesday 1st June 00:55
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