Issued COVID FPN by a police officer
Discussion
Gman20 said:
I get the impression that the missing part of this story is now that there may have been some sort of car gathering that in the police's opinion was outside of the rules, you were there with presumably a fairly nice car and rightly or wrongly were identified as being part of it.
Does that sound likely?
Especially if he was there in his car and someone was taking photos of his car, which suggests the car was the reason for being there.Does that sound likely?
38911 said:
Gooly said:
I stuck with my pal as he shot my car. This is when the police saw us and pulled up.
Wait, what?I haven’t read all 29 pages so apologies if this has been discussed already, but your original post said :
Gooly said:
A police officer issued a COVID FPN to me 11 days ago whilst I was on a walk with someone not from my household 3 miles from my house.
Going for a walk with your mate and driving somewhere for your mate to take photos of your car are two very different things!
I did mention the photos later on after my original post. I didnt expect this thread to blow up like this hence posting such a summarised story, I only initially wanted answers to a few specific questions.
I sent BV a full unredacted statement of events in my first email as I wouldn’t want to waste anyones time!
I sent BV a full unredacted statement of events in my first email as I wouldn’t want to waste anyones time!
Hello - received a letter today from ACRO saying that the issuing force have decided to take no further action after reviewing the evidence, ie the case has been dropped. I have made several efforts to provide representations to ACRO and the Met but I'm not sure if these were taken into account or not as none have been acknowledged in any way or form. I will list what I've done below:
BV72 very kindly drafted me a brief appeal response summarising my position and account of events. I tweaked and emailed this to ACRO to the address listed on the FPN, which is an inbox for if you wish to notify ACRO that you will be declining the FPN and proceeding with a SJP. A few days later I received a generic reply which stated that my 'query' can be answered via the FAQs and that I will not be receiving any sort of response, effectively meaning that email went to the bin.
My friend with whom I was issued the FPN with had his withdrawn last month. He took my (probably unwise) advice to submit his statement of facts / appeal through the official Met Police online complaints portal. This got passed to the Met's COVID-19 inbox, who then reviewed the BWV and sent him a letter stating that on the basis of the BWV and his complaint they will be withdrawing proceedings, adding that they believed that 'as a law abiding citizen (he) would have left the area and returned home if requested', ie the officer was too quick to issue an FPN instead of just telling us to sod off.
The letter also stated that their unit was unable to deal with personal complaints against officers however if he wanted to, they could refer it to the unit that could, (professional standards unit). Also, before receiving his response he paid the £100 fine as he wasn't confident it would get overturned and he didn't want to miss the discount period. This £100 was subsequently refunded to him on the basis of the overturned FPN, something which I found pleasantly surprising as I thought he may have forfeited his right to appeal by paying.
Based on his success, I did the same and submitted my appeal through the complaints portal as I saw no other option. Mine however got passed straight to PSU, who stated they cannot do anything RE the Covid FPN and can only deal with the officer complaint. I asked them to email the inbox that my friend's complaint had been passed to, but I never heard back from that. I then received a letter about a week ago stating I had missed out on the 28 day window to pay the FPN, and that the matter has been passed back to the Met who may then hold me liable for a SJP. I'm assuming at this point they review the evidence and decide whether or not to proceed. I genuinely don't know if the FPN was withdrawn based purely on the evidence, ie the officer's statement and her BWV, or the noise I was making.
Either way I will be continuing on with my PSU complaint against the officer, namely to try and get all FPNs issued by her to be reviewed and withdrawn where applicable. Not out for blood but I hope everyone else who was unfortunate enough to deal with her is able to have a positive resolution to this. I hope this can provide some guidance as to how un-transparent the process around these FPNs is. I have yet to receive the name, number or station of the officer who issued my FPN however I am hoping / assuming PSU will at least be able to retrieve this.
BV72 very kindly drafted me a brief appeal response summarising my position and account of events. I tweaked and emailed this to ACRO to the address listed on the FPN, which is an inbox for if you wish to notify ACRO that you will be declining the FPN and proceeding with a SJP. A few days later I received a generic reply which stated that my 'query' can be answered via the FAQs and that I will not be receiving any sort of response, effectively meaning that email went to the bin.
My friend with whom I was issued the FPN with had his withdrawn last month. He took my (probably unwise) advice to submit his statement of facts / appeal through the official Met Police online complaints portal. This got passed to the Met's COVID-19 inbox, who then reviewed the BWV and sent him a letter stating that on the basis of the BWV and his complaint they will be withdrawing proceedings, adding that they believed that 'as a law abiding citizen (he) would have left the area and returned home if requested', ie the officer was too quick to issue an FPN instead of just telling us to sod off.
The letter also stated that their unit was unable to deal with personal complaints against officers however if he wanted to, they could refer it to the unit that could, (professional standards unit). Also, before receiving his response he paid the £100 fine as he wasn't confident it would get overturned and he didn't want to miss the discount period. This £100 was subsequently refunded to him on the basis of the overturned FPN, something which I found pleasantly surprising as I thought he may have forfeited his right to appeal by paying.
Based on his success, I did the same and submitted my appeal through the complaints portal as I saw no other option. Mine however got passed straight to PSU, who stated they cannot do anything RE the Covid FPN and can only deal with the officer complaint. I asked them to email the inbox that my friend's complaint had been passed to, but I never heard back from that. I then received a letter about a week ago stating I had missed out on the 28 day window to pay the FPN, and that the matter has been passed back to the Met who may then hold me liable for a SJP. I'm assuming at this point they review the evidence and decide whether or not to proceed. I genuinely don't know if the FPN was withdrawn based purely on the evidence, ie the officer's statement and her BWV, or the noise I was making.
Either way I will be continuing on with my PSU complaint against the officer, namely to try and get all FPNs issued by her to be reviewed and withdrawn where applicable. Not out for blood but I hope everyone else who was unfortunate enough to deal with her is able to have a positive resolution to this. I hope this can provide some guidance as to how un-transparent the process around these FPNs is. I have yet to receive the name, number or station of the officer who issued my FPN however I am hoping / assuming PSU will at least be able to retrieve this.
Edited by Gooly on Wednesday 12th May 15:56
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