Costs of speeding to rise
Police to target acquitted motorists
According to a BBC story this morning, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is "getting fed up"with motorists escaping from charges of speeding because of what it calls technicalities. So ACPO will be bringing in a team consisting of a lawyer and an ex-police officer with the aim of strengthening its legal brainpower.
It means that, if you lose your case and the court decides that you’re liable for costs, then you won’t just pay the speeding penalty -- you’ll pay the police’s costs too, which will include the cost of that team. The amount could be as high as £4,000.
The initiative is part of a general crack-down on what police chiefs see as a wave of people getting away with motoring offences such as drink-driving and reckless driving on technical grounds. They appear to have thrown breaking the speed limit into the same bucket.
ACPO also said that it would be keeping a close eye on drivers whom the police believe have been incorrectly acquitted of such offences.
South Yorks police chief Meredydd Hughes told the BBC that “officers were becoming increasingly frustrated with lawyers who used legal small print to help win acquittals for clients. "There have been a number of cases where people feel that justice has not been done, both in the drink-driving world and in other cases where people have evaded the law having driven cars recklessly and at very high speeds”, he said.
Reactions from a lawyer who specialises in defending such motorists and from civil rights group Liberty criticised the initiative.
Lawyer Nick Freeman condemned the practice of getting guilty people off via legal loopholes but said that it was his job. Liberty said that if "police officers are going to target people they consider have been unjustly acquitted - meaning they are going to stop them on a number of occasions when they don't have a good reason - then that should be wrong in principle and probably is almost certainly illegal as well."
Road safety campaign Safe Speed said that such intimidation tactics are unacceptable and illegal since costs in court cases 'should not be disproportionate', according to magistrates' official guidelines.
Campaign founder Paul Smith said: "These tactics stink of desperation and intimidation. I presume that too many people are fighting speeding tickets, and that it interfering with the flow of money from speed cameras. I am disgusted that, in efforts to enforce petty regulations against us that the Police in this country are now prepared to bend the law for reasons of intimidation and expediency.
"Speed cameras are wrong and don't make the roads safer. Now we have wrong intimidation tactics from the police. As countless thousands of erroneous speeding tickets are issued each year and motorists are entitled to proper justice, the police are effectively saying: don't bother us, you're guilty.
"The war of technicalities waged against the motorist is out of control. The original objective of improving road safety has long been forgotten by both sides. I urge every motorist who may have a valid defence in law to challenge their speeding ticket. Do not be intimidated. You are entitled to justice."
It's a shame when a few chiefs, brains addled by polcorness, further compound the legions of quality dibble out there who ime, are quite often PHers of the finest, non-short arsed variety who themselves would otherwise actively encourage appropriate speeding.
Poor show.
If I am found innocent of an alleged motoring offence but the poice think I was guilty I will be 'targeted'. Surely this is harrassment?
And now with the threat of a £4000 "fine" if a defence fails, completely out of proportion to the usual punishment of £60+3, there will be a far more scope for the police to force through more unlawful prosecutions.
As if that wasn't bad enough, if you are innocent of an offence under the laws of the land, you are now going to be victimised and harassed by the police until they do catch or entice you into committing an offence.
And to think, the police can't understand why nobody respects them anymore...
If, on the other hand, I contest a charge and get off on "a technicality" (for which read the charge was unlawful) then I look forward to bringing a case against the contabulary concerned for loss of earnings from arsing around illustrating how they haven't done their job properly.
I believe that if we contested these things rather than blindly accepting them then the corrupt - or at best misguided - logic that bring them to be would foundered. Our justice system and democratic systems would serve us just fine if we chose to use them correctly.
If the police wish to pursue motorists with all the vigour of a murder charge, I will defend my innocence as vehemently as I would if I was served with a trumped up murder charge! It may feel like only lawyers are benefiting short-term, but let's not forget that the police are public servants and too much time and money wasted will have them asnwerable to the people they are meant to be serving.
Joe Public said it would be keeping an eye on ACPO, which Joe Public believes has been wrongly judged to be competent and have a f
g clue, and to be living on the same planet.
If you want to tackle the loopholes, then make the law fair and easily enforceable. Raise speed limits to a sensible level and spend time & money on catching the real criminals.
Everyone would be happier and relations between the public and police would improve greatly.
Why can't we have some common sense in this country for a change?!
If you want to tackle the loopholes, then make the law fair and easily enforceable. Raise speed limits to a sensible level and spend time & money on catching the real criminals.
Everyone would be happier and relations between the public and police would improve greatly.
Why can't we have some common sense in this country for a change?!
That comment, sir, makes you look like an absolute cock. Which given you post on PH can't be the truth.
If you knew ANYTHING about the field, you would know that CPS lawyers are salaried and therefore don't "line their pockets", and they earn probably 30% of a lawyer in private practice.
Get your facts straight before launching into a lazy attack on an obvious target.
There have been some high-profile examples of people avoiding punishment for driving offences, including cases where couples have argued that they could not remember who had been driving at the time.
Surely if a Police officer stops a car there is no doubt about this. If however it is a camera I can see the problem, but I thought the law in this country was about proving guilt not about people having to prove innocence. I am positvie there are lots of crimes where Police 'know' who did it, but they have to prove it!! Most drivers are a soft target as they are generally law abiding, this is just another bullying tactic to make more people accept a fine and points.
The law should be the law, if the police make a procedural mistake that is their fault and they should make sure that they do things properly.
'<i>I think my colleagues in the roads policing groups will share my anger when people are unjustly acquitted and I'm sure they'll be looking for those drivers.</i>'
Is admitting that they believe that they are above the law (which they are meant to be upholding in the first place) and they are admitting that some members of the force are intending to harass motorists who have been proved innocent by the law.
I am not legal person but is that not an offence in itself?
Country's going to the dogs.. (cont pg 94)
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