KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
In terms of your private hire licence, you will be required to notify the council of the offence in accordance with the guidance issued to you upon the grant of your licence. The failure to notify the council of an offence is taken very seriously and they may consider issuing you with a warn- ing, or even suspending or revoking your licence.
You are likely to be called to a meeting with the Licencing Committee where they will discuss your suitability to con- tinue holding such a licence. When doing this, they will discuss the circumstances of the offence and will be ap- plying the fit and proper person test.
Every licencing authority will have different guidelines that they will follow when considering whether or not a licence holder is a fit and proper person, but, for the most part, licencing authorities take a very serious view of con- victions involving either drink or drugs and unfortunately offences of this nature are likely to result in the suspen- sion or revocation of your private hire licence.
The guidelines will also give details on these types of convictions and when an applicant is likely to be success- ful. The guidance is often that an application will not be granted for at least five years after the end of the disqual- ification period imposed by the court. Each application would be considered on a case by case basis, but the au- thority will often review applications in accordance with their individual procedures and so it is important to re- view the guidance issued directly by your licencing au- thority.
If your licence is suspended or revoked you do have the automatic right to appeal against the decision. If you wish to appeal you will have 21 days in which to lodge the ap- peal with the court. If you do not lodge an appeal in this time then you will not be able to appeal against the deci- sion of the licencing authority.
At appeal, the burden would be on you as the appellant to prove that you are fit and proper, and that the decision of the licencing authority to revoke the licence was wrong.
emailed the court saying I wanted to appeal but they haven’t come back to me in two weeks. Does it usually take this long? Now I have appealed, should I pay the fine?
Q A
Emailing the court is not going to resolve this issue. You need to either make a Statutory Dec- laration or lodge a formal Notice of Appeal. Both have strict deadlines so you need to get
JUNE 2020
I got a notice of fine from the court saying I have been fined £660 and now the DVLA say six points have been put on my licence for failing to provide driver details. I don’t know anything about this. I
to work urgently. Emailing the court is not going to make this go away.
It sounds like you have been found guilty in your absence of failing to provide driver information. When certain of- fences are committed where the police cannot identify the driver (for example camera detected speeding of- fences or hit and run cases) they send a request to the registered keeper asking them to nominate the driver. If there is no response they will prosecute for failing to pro- vide driver information – an offence which carries six- penalty points.
They would send you a Postal Requisitioned/Single Jus- tice Procedure Notice and ask you to plead guilty or not guilty by post. And again, if there is no response they will automatically find you guilty in your absence, imposing penalty points and a fine.
Considering you know nothing about it it sounds like the request for information and court papers may well have been sent to an incorrect address. Once the case is re- opened, we will be able to get the evidence and examine it. It will be interesting to see to which addresses they were apparently sent.
The best thing to do now would be to make a Statutory Declaration. It means you must go to court and swear under oath that you were not aware of the court proceed- ings. Once made it sets aside any points/fine that have been imposed and starts the proceedings again from the beginning, allowing you to plead guilty or not guilty. At the moment, because of the coronavirus, the courts are closed but you can still make statutory declarations at a local solicitors firm or some courts are even doing them over the telephone. However, you only have 21 days from finding out about the proceedings to make the declara- tion and so time is ticking quickly. If you fall outside of 21 days the court can refuse it.
If, for any reason you cannot make a statutory declaration another way of getting this heard is by appeal to the Crown Court. This requires lodging a formal Notice of Ap- peal at the Magistrates’ Court, setting out the issues in the case and the grounds for appeal. The case would then be sent to the Crown Court, where it would be heard by a Judge and two Magistrates. But this must be done within 21 days of the conviction date, so it could well al- ready be out of time.
This impartial advice has been provided by Patterson Law Solicitors
www.pattersonlaw.co.uk
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