KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
2) That you were driving in the course of your employment; and
3) That you did not know nor suspect that the vehicle was not insured.
And so in order to prepare your defence we will need to prove all of the above three. The burden is on us to prove on the balance of probabilities, rather than the usual standard which is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt. With that in mind supporting evidence and witness statements are vital.
You are correct, having 12 points on your licence puts you at risk of a six-month ban. But that is not inevitable. A ban is at the discretion of the court and they can agree not to disqualify you if they believe that a ban would cause you exceptional hardship.
Exceptional hardship means hardship both to you and other people around you, and so we need to prepare your argument not just on the effect that a disqualification would have on you but also the consequences on your family, your work colleagues, on people you care for.
However these arguments are notoriously difficult to present and require thorough preparation. We do not just need to explain the difficulties that being disqualified would cause, but the consequences of being disqualified as well as why specifically you need a licence, i.e. why you cannot rely on family members or public transport.
And in almost every case the court will expect us to support our arguments with evidence, letters and documents. So we need to get preparing early.
insured by my employer?
Q A
On the face of it, yes, you have a defence. It sounds like you have already done some research. Driving without insurance is a strict liability offence,
meaning that if you have insurance you are not guilty and if you don't then you are guilty.
However, there is a very specific defence designed to protect employees. Even though you have been driving a vehicle without insurance you will have a defence if you can show: 1) That the vehicle did not belong to you;
JUNE 2021
I have recently been stopped by the police for driving without insurance, but I was driving within the course of my employment in a company car. Do I have a defence to this as I assumed the car was
I would suggest that we start by getting a copy of the V5 for the vehicle to show that it was registered to your employer and not to you.
Secondly I would suggest getting a copy of your work rota or perhaps even a statement from your manager to show that you were driving during the course of your employment.
And finally I would advise getting as much evidence as we can to support the fact that you did not know or suspect that there were any problems with the insurance. Ideally this would come from witness statements from your employer, however I appreciate that a lot of the time employers are quite reluctant to give such statements as they may see themselves getting into trouble for allowing their employees to drive their cars when uninsured. However we may be able to get around this by obtaining copy of your employment contract, perhaps any emails or text messages you have between you talking about insurance, or perhaps even statements from colleagues to explain that it is all taken care of by the company rather than themselves personally.
However it is also important that there are strict rules for evidencing this in court. The correct procedures are that in the first instance you would have to plead not guilty and get a trial listed in a Magistrates’ Court. And once you have a trial listed, there are strict procedures and deadlines for serving all of this evidence on the prosecution and the court. You cannot simply turn up at the trial on the date and present this to the Court, as the prosecution will accuse you of ambushing and not serving evidence within the rules and you may be prevented from relying on it. With this in mind, I would strongly advise being legally represented for this case. Please give us a call and we can get to work urgently.
This impartial advice has been provided by Patterson Law Solicitors 01626 359800
www.pattersonlaw.co.uk
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