KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
If you were to instruct our firm we would assist you in entering a not guilty plea and it would be worth making representations to the CPS to ask them to consider withdrawing the case against you, but we would also need to continue to prepare for trial.
time. The breath test said the reading was 74. I have previously been to court for the same offence five years ago and was disqualified from driving. I am terrified about what the court will do. Am I going to go to prison?
so we do not know who was driving at the time. We were able to whittle it down to three possible drivers out of five of us. We did everything we could to work out who it was with no luck. I have only had my licence for a year and do not want to receive penalty points. What should I do?
Q A
We can definitely help you with this. First of all it is important that you know an offence of failing to provide driver information will put you at risk of six penalty points and a financial penalty. As you are
within your first two years of driving you will be at risk of having your driving licence revoked by the DVLA for accumu- lating six points within your probationary period and you would unfortunately be required to retake both parts of your driving test before you are able to drive again.
But we may be able to avoid this as you would have a good defence to the allegation of failing to provide driver information.
As the vehicle is in your name, Section 172 requires you as the keeper of the vehicle to nominate the driver. If you do not nominate the driver you would be guilty of the offence unless you were able to show the court that even after exercising reasonable diligence, you did not know who was driving and therefore could not nominate the driver.
We would need to look at everything you did to find out who was driving. It is already quite helpful that you were able to rule out a couple of potential drivers and we would need to show evidence to the court how this was done. You will be required to give evidence at court about this and it would be helpful for us to obtain statements from your friends too, detailing what was done to ascertain who was driving.
APRIL 2022
I have received a court summons for failing to provide driver information. I don’t know who was driving. A group of us had used my car and driven to a festival but due to the distance we all shared the driving and
Q A
Drink driving is an offence that could warrant a prison sentence if the circumstances are serious enough, but based on the details provided it is unlikely. With a reading of 74ug, the court would place you into the
second category of their guidelines. This covers any readings between 60-89 in breath. Usually, that would place you at risk of a disqualification of 17-22 months and a community order (such as unpaid work or a curfew requirement). However, as this is a second relevant offence within a ten-year period, the minimum disqualification period will increase to 36 months and the guidelines would suggest anywhere between a 36-46 month ban for this offence.
There are unfortunately aggravating factors in your case. Specifically there is evidence of an unacceptable standard of driving (swerving in the road) and being involved in an accident (scraping another car). Having previous convictions of this nature is also an aggravating factor that the court will consider. This increases the seriousness of the offence and would increase the sentence the court will consider, although they would usually stay within their guidelines.
There are however mitigating factors too and it is impor- tant that we highlight these factors to the court in order to minimise the sentence as much as possible. The mitigating factors would include the fact it was 4am and so you would have been unlikely to come into contact with pedestrians. We can also present some personal mitigation to the court, but unfortunately you will certainly be disqualified for a minimum period of 36 months and you are likely to receive a community order which will probably be unpaid work.
If you need advice on motoring matters please email
advice@pattersonlaw.co.uk or for regular updates on road traffic law follow us on
facebook.com/PattersonLawMotoringSolicitors or
twitter.com/Patterson_law_
91
I was arrested over the weekend for drink driving after swerving in the road and scraping a parked car. There was a very small dent and scrape mark. It was 4am and thankfully there was nobody around at this
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