Help with a court summons - M4 road works in June.

[rapidophile]

Hi Guys, sorry to be a bore and ask you to help me, but I'm a bit rubbish with legal stuff, and in my 12 years of driving, I've managed not to get any offences, points or anything - so this is highly dissapointing.

On valentines day I got a court summons from Bath Constab asking me to get myself down to appear in court on march the 15th - very romantic eh!?

I got flashed on the M4 on a conned part (road works), 40mph limit doing 67mph - opps, but the speed limit had been changing erratically, and a 4 hour journey at national speed limit had turned into 8 with all these road works and I was still no where near home, I'd drive for miles and miles at 40mph/50mph and I was slowing down as I entered the zone, but I thought it was 50mph along with obviously not slowing down rapidly enough. I was also pretty much going at the speed of the traffic also, not that that is any excuse.

Anyway, here are the details:

The car belongs to the old man, borrowed to go to a wedding.

Flash was 31/07/05 67mph in temporary 40mph zone.
NIP served 08/05/05, the old man nominated me as driver asap.
NIP served to me 18/08/05 - I responded to confirm I was driving.
Nothing recieved further, till...
Summons served 14/02/06.

What I want to know is, is it best just to send back the form admitting guilt? Some people have been suggesting that they've left it to long? And also that the rather erratic and stupid speed limits on the M4 have got some others off.

Many Thanks in anticipation.

[CombeMarshal]

Sounds to me like you've won some points!

[steve z]

They have to issue a summons within 6 months of issuing the NIP. If it applies to the first one you're off the hook, if it applies to the second one (which I suspect it does) they've got it in just in time.

[SS2.]

steve z said:

They have to issue a summons within 6 months of issuing the NIP. If it applies to the first one you're off the hook, if it applies to the second one (which I suspect it does) they've got it in just in time.

: pedantic mode :

An information has to be laid with the Magistrates' Court within 6 months of the commission of the offence.

For speeding, that would be 6 months from the date of the alleged offence.

For a failure to furnish driver details charge, the offence occurs the day after the S172 information was due to be received by the SCP / BiB.

For instance:

Alleged speeding offence - 1 January
NIP issued to RK - 9 January
RK responds after 26 days and nominates son = 4 February
Son receives his own NIP - 10 February
Son does not respond to NIP, S172 offence thus occurs on 28 February

SCP / BiB have until 27 September to lay papers with the court.

Note that the laying of an information is not the same as serving a summons. A summons can follow upto 2 years after the matter has been lodged with the Mags...

[SS2.]

rapidophile said:

Flash was 31/07/05 67mph in temporary 40mph zone. NIP served 08/05/05, the old man nominated me as driver asap. NIP served to me 18/08/05 - I responded to confirm I was driving. Nothing recieved further, till... Summons served 14/02/06. What I want to know is, is it best just to send back the form admitting guilt? Some people have been suggesting that they've left it to long?

You supplied driver details therefore I guess you must have been summonsed for the alleged speeding offence.

As detailed above, the information would require to have been laid with the court no later than 6 months after the date of the alleged offence ie 30 January 2006. What is the date on the summons - not the posted or served date, but the 'date of information' (or similar) ??