KNOW YOUR RIGHTS


At Patterson Law we get over 90 enquiries every day from people with road traffic issues! Most people call us for free advice, hoping there is an easy answer to their question. Usually there is not. One of our favourite sayings is “there is no magic wand!”


Most legal cases are complex and require repres- entation. If you ever find yourself at court, our advice is always to instruct a lawyer to help. Even though these are only traffic matters, they are dealt with under the same umbrella as general criminal law – the same procedures as assaults, thefts, and murders. The process of evidence, witnesses and trials is not one we would ever recommend people take on themselves.


In this month’s article we have given two examples of such cases based on real cases from last year.


CASE 1


QUESTION: Mr X called us as he had a court hearing, having been accused of drink driving. He was a private hire driver and whilst dropping off his customer had a minor collision with another car. He explained to us that his fare became impatient and left whilst he stayed behind to exchange details.


Half an hour later the police turned up at his house. They found him with a can of lager in his hand. Despite the fact he had been clearly drinking after he got home, they accused him of drink driving and breathalysed him. He was over the limit.


He was taken into the station and he blew just over the legal limit, so was charged with drink driving.


He couldn’t understand how the police were charging him when they had no evidence that he was above the limit at the time he was behind the wheel, especially when it was clear he had been drinking the alcohol after he got home.


HOW THE CASE PROCEEDED: Mr X turned up at court for the first hearing and was hoping he could just explain that it was obvious he had been drinking after driving, and they would throw the case out. They did not. Instead they put pressure on him to plead guilty. They threatened him with a longer ban and thousands in fines and costs if he continued to plead not guilty. When he refused, they adjourned the case for two weeks for him to get legal representation and ‘consider his plea’. He then instructed us to act for him.


66


The case was far more complicated than he was expecting. According to the law, the police don’t have to catch you drunk behind the wheel. If they have evidence you were driving and you were over the limit even a couple of hours after, they can legally assume that you therefore must have been drink driving. If the defendant wants to prove they weren’t drunk behind the wheel and only drank alcohol after they stopped driving, then it is for the defendant to prove that.


This case was complicated further by the fact that the customer in the back of his car didn’t leave the scene because she got impatient; she was the one who reported him to the police for drink driving and said she left because she didn’t feel safe.


We started by attending the adjourned hearing with him and entering a not guilty plea. The case was listed for trial another three months down the line.


We then ‘rejected’ the witness statement of the customer. That means we wrote to the prosecution to explain her evidence was not agreed – resulting in her needing to attend court to give evidence at the trial so that we could cross-examine her.


Then we had to prove that he drank alcohol after driving.


This was fairly obvious considering the police caught him at his house with a can of lager in his hand. But to make the case as strong as we could, we firstly got a copy of the footage from the arrest to prove that he did not have the lager in his hand, and also a copy of his police station interview where he explained to the police exactly how much he had drunk.


We then instructed an expert toxicologist to calculate what he told the police he had to drink would have led to the exact reading he gave at the station, which backed up his story.


We tried to contact the driver of the car he collided with, but they were abroad and uncontactable. So instead we got a witness statement from his wife who could corroborate the fact that he had a few cans of lager after he got home to calm his nerves after the crash.


Now we were prepared for trial.


OUTCOME: At the trial the prosecution witness did not turn up and because we had ‘rejected’ her evidence, they could not rely on her written statement.


Our client gave evidence, followed by the toxicologist and his wife. The footage was then played showing the lager in his hand at the point of arrest, and the interview was read to the court, showing he had been consistent in what he was saying throughout.


FEBRUARY 2024 PHTM


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76