Speeding offence fiasco, any advice welcome

[martinbiz]

Aretnap said:

martinbiz said:

what she mustn’t do is to now identify the driver or they will have a slam dunk guilty for both charges.

Not really.

There is a defence to failure to furnish if it was not reasonably practical to provide the info within 28 days, so long as you provided it as soon as it was reasonably practical.

The OP's mum's case will be that she thought the information had been provided, and due to the amount of time it took the reply to be returned for insufficient postage, it wasn't possible for her to know sooner that it hadn't been received, and therefore it wasn't reasonably practical for her to send it again. This doesn't seem like a bombproof argument for various reasons, but it's not an obviously absurd one either, especially if the reminder came very soon after the original reply was sent.

However now that she does know that it wasn't received, she does need to be able to say that she provided the information as soon as reasonably practical for the defence to have any chance. I assume this is why AGTLaw (who more about these things than you or me) recommends sending another reply asap.

It won't lead to convictions for both charges - the mum can't be convicted of speeding if it wasn't her driving and the son can't be convicted if it's more than 6 months singe the offence and he still hasn't been charged.

[martinbiz]

Aretnap said:

martinbiz said:

what she mustn’t do is to now identify the driver or they will have a slam dunk guilty for both charges.

Not really.

There is a defence to failure to furnish if it was not reasonably practical to provide the info within 28 days, so long as you provided it as soon as it was reasonably practical.

The OP's mum's case will be that she thought the information had been provided, and due to the amount of time it took the reply to be returned for insufficient postage, it wasn't possible for her to know sooner that it hadn't been received, and therefore it wasn't reasonably practical for her to send it again. This doesn't seem like a bombproof argument for various reasons, but it's not an obviously absurd one either, especially if the reminder came very soon after the original reply was sent.

However now that she does know that it wasn't received, she does need to be able to say that she provided the information as soon as reasonably practical for the defence to have any chance. I assume this is why AGTLaw (who more about these things than you or me) recommends sending another reply asap.

It won't lead to convictions for both charges - the mum can't be convicted of speeding if it wasn't her driving and the son can't be convicted if it's more than 6 months singe the offence and he still hasn't been charged.

Yes I agree with most of that except the first paragraph I think it is a microscopically small chance that the defence of not being reasonably practical to reply would fly, despite warning letters(s) I would be surprised if there was only one in 5 months they were ignored which really should have been a red flag to most, but you never know. Hopefully the OP will take the advice of speaking to an expert, preferably AGT as he should will be well up to speed after listening to us waffling on

Edited by martinbiz on Tuesday 21st March 14:11

[macky17]

Update:

We decided to follow AGT's advice and to employ his services. The upshot is that the police prosecutor decided today to drop the case altogether. Case closed, and all at a fraction of the cost of a fine or of employing a traditional solicitor (as opposed to a barrister).

Thank you to Andrew.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

macky17 said:

Update:

We decided to follow AGT's advice and to employ his services. The upshot is that the police prosecutor decided today to drop the case altogether. Case closed, and all at a fraction of the cost of a fine or of employing a traditional solicitor (as opposed to a barrister).

Thank you to Andrew.

Top result!

[TheDrownedApe]

macky17 said:

Update:

We decided to follow AGT's advice and to employ his services. The upshot is that the police prosecutor decided today to drop the case altogether. Case closed, and all at a fraction of the cost of a fine or of employing a traditional solicitor (as opposed to a barrister).

Thank you to Andrew.

PH massive and AGT come good. I can't abide some of the users on here but generally it's a good place to be a part of.

Glad you got it sorted

[macky17]

TheDrownedApe said:

macky17 said:

Update:

We decided to follow AGT's advice and to employ his services. The upshot is that the police prosecutor decided today to drop the case altogether. Case closed, and all at a fraction of the cost of a fine or of employing a traditional solicitor (as opposed to a barrister).

Thank you to Andrew.

PH massive and AGT come good. I can't abide some of the users on here but generally it's a good place to be a part of.

Glad you got it sorted

Yes, thank you all. I should have said that also.

[martinbiz]

Excellent result

[Gary C]

Wow, so the speeding offence has been dropped too ?

[BertBert]

Wow, so that AGT bloke is of some use after all

[johnboy1975]

macky17 said:

Update:

We decided to follow AGT's advice and to employ his services. The upshot is that the police prosecutor decided today to drop the case altogether. Case closed, and all at a fraction of the cost of a fine or of employing a traditional solicitor (as opposed to a barrister).

Thank you to Andrew.

Duly noted for future use...

(Obviously you're not lying but surely the the whole point of F2F is to avoid people wriggling out of similar situations in similar ways?)

[QBee]

Surely the point here is that genuine mistakes regarding paperwork should be treated as just that.
I would hope that the law would view anything I did similarly as just that - a genuine mistake.

[johnboy1975]

QBee said:

Surely the point here is that genuine mistakes regarding paperwork should be treated as just that.
I would hope that the law would view anything I did similarly as just that - a genuine mistake.

Fully agreed, except the OP is now in a better position than before the cock up with the paperwork. I would expect (hope) the mistake correction to merely restore parity, and I'd be a bit resigned to the cock up going against me, possibly badly

Can I ask AGTLaw if this is the outcome he was expecting/ hoping for?