HAVE YOU BEEN CONVICTED OF A DRIVING OFFENCE WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE?

Many people in the UK are being convicted of driving offences without even knowing they have been charged or taken to Court!

April 2015 saw the introduction of The Single Justice Procedure Notice (“SJPN”). This process is used to avoid a Court Hearing & to allow a single Magistrate & a Legal Adviser to deal with a case on paper without the attendance of either a prosecutor or, you, the defendant. You are expected to enter a plea & ask for leniency either online or, in writing but many people do not receive the Notice & many Courts do not receive or, lose responses sent by Defendants!

Almost inevitably, you will then find yourself convicted! So what is going wrong?

How does an SJPN work?

An SJPN is sent to you by post giving details of the alleged offence & your options:

·      plead guilty

·      plead guilty & request a Court hearing

·      plead not guilty & request a Trial date

You have 21 days to respond. Failure to respond to an SJPN will almost certainly mean that you are convicted in your absence & without your knowledge. You will only realise you have been convicted when you receive a notification from the Court confirming the points endorsed on your licence & the financial penalties payable.

The normal way of dealing with this type of offence would have been to send you a Postal Requisition or Summons with a specific date and time for you to physically attend Court. 

Since the new procedure came into force in 2015, there have been numerous cases of people being convicted without their knowledge because, for whatever reasons (e.g. incorrect address details), a Notice has not been received. This means there are a Magistrate and a Legal Adviser dealing with cases without anyone else being there. 

What can happen?

I have known situations where clients have been disqualified from driving in their absence and subsequently arrested for driving whilst disqualified, which is a serious offence and can carry severe penalties, including six penalty points, a fine of up to ￡5,000 and even imprisonment for up to six months.

Setting aside a driving ban & re-opening proceedings requires an Application to the Court or, you making a Statutory Declaration – both procedures involve delay. Even if you succeed at that stage, DVLA take several days to remove the ban from your online record – until they do, you must not drive! So you end up being unable to drive often for a few weeks.

What if you are charged with what may be alternative offences?

Sometimes, you can be charged with:

·      speeding and

·      failing to give information as to the identity of the driver

Normally, you physically attend court and request & discuss what had happened with a view to one of the charges being withdrawn removed in return for a guilty plea to the other offence. Often what happens is that you arrive at Court & say either that

·      you did not receive the Notice asking for driver information or that

·      you returned it & the Police simply did not receive it

The failure to give driver information results in 6 points going on your licence. If you were in fact the driver the speeding offence may see you get only 3 points. There have been instances where an individual has pleaded guilty to both offences not knowing what they were pleading guilty to and as a result, it has gone before the Single Justice Court and they have been convicted of both offences. This is nonsensical & unjust. If you accept guilt for one offence, e.g. speeding, then the other offence should be withdrawn. You should not be convicted of both.

The SJPN procedure was brought in to streamline the process and speed it up: however, it is causing far too many problems for the public who are forced to go back to Court to make a Declaration to reopen a case and start afresh as they have been convicted without their knowledge.

Would you know what an SJPN was?

SJPNs are sent directly by the Police. Many people confuse them with a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP), which are also issued by the Police. You may not be familiar with this procedure, or any Magistrates Court procedure. It is therefore easy to misunderstand what you are dealing with.

This procedure was introduced to clear Court backlogs & save time, but it is clear that it is resulting in injustice to individuals who are not familiar with the process. The paperwork needs to be redesigned & the fact that a Court is involved made perfectly clear.

If you have problems with any procedure relating to a driving offence, please get in touch.