KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
In this month’s edition we feature more road traffic issues relevant to the trade supplied by Patterson Law. In particular we have focused on a legal argument known as special reasons. Most traffic offences are strict liability, meaning they do not require intent for an offence to be committed. For example, you don’t have to intend to speed in order to be guilty of speeding - you can do it accidentally yet still be guilty. It is different from, say, theft, which does require intent. Writing the law in this way provides certainty for road users and without doubt saves police time as they don’t have to investigate millions of speeding offences to work out whether a driver intended to speed. However it does create cases where people are guilty but haven’t meant to commit an offence or where there is a good reason as to why the offence has happened, which doesn’t seem fair. And this is where special reasons come in. A special reason is where somebody is guilty but the court agrees that there are special reasons for not endorsing their licence with penalty points or disqualifying them from driving. It’s a way for the law to stay simple yet fair. There are various points to these arguments and a number of areas which they cover, but the key is that it has to be connected with the commission of the offence. So for example a special reason cannot be that somebody is dependent on their licence to work or for their family, instead a special reason has to be a reason as to why they committed the offence in the first place. Below are real questions that we have been asked where a special reasons argument might be available. This area of law is complicated and we would always advise seeking expert legal advice before attempting to present any such argument yourself. If you need any advice on motoring matters, email
advice@pattersonlaw.co.uk or call 01626 359 800 for free legal advice.
Q A
I’m being prosecuted for drink driving but it wasn’t even my fault. I was at the pub for the semi-final and my friends were all buying rounds of drinks. I was asking for single vodka and cokes but doubles were
on offer and so my friends were getting me doubles without telling me. I thought I only had three singles but actually I had three doubles and ended up being over the limit. I want to take this to court because it wasn’t my fault. I told my friends they will need to give a statement but they won’t unless I can guarantee they won’t get into trouble.
Drink-driving is an extremely serious offence that carries a mandatory minimum 12 month disqualifica- tion (possibly more depending on the reading), an unlimited fine and up to 6 months in prison.
From what you have said you may have a ‘special reasons’ argument available on the basis of “laced drinks”. If the Court find in our favour you may come away with no ban at all. In order to run a laced drinks argument there are three criteria that we would need to show; 1) Evidence that your drinks were laced. This means getting evidence from your friends who bought you doubles. They would all need to give statements and probably come to court to give evidence as well. Unfortunately I cannot guar- antee that your friends would not get into trouble. They may be prosecuted for causing you to drink drive and could receive 10 points.
2) That you did not know nor suspect that your drinks had been laced. This means we need to explore whether they told you, whether you tasted the difference and whether you felt more drunk than usual.
3) That without the additional alcohol you would have been under the legal limit. It is more than likely we will need to get a toxicologist to provide an expert report to show this.
We need to work quickly. There are often strict deadlines and 68
timetables in these types of cases and if we miss those dead- lines to serve witness statements and expert reports then we may not be allowed to rely on vital evidence at the hearing.
caught going at 90 in a 70. Can I challenge it?
Q A
Potentially it could be a special reason. If you accept that you put your foot down and you were travelling at 90 then it’s unlikely that there would have been anything wrong with the recording equipment and I would not advise defending the matter. However you
may have a special reasons argument available on the basis that you were only speeding to keep yourself safe and to put some distance between you and the car behind you.
However, the weakness in your case is going to be the inten- tion - if you intentionally increased your speed to put some distance between you and the Audi. Generally special reasons are only found when there is no intent. I would like to know more about it though. We may be able to argue that it was never your intention to commit an offence but there was no other option, so I’d like to know how long he was follow- ing you for, how close he was and why you couldn’t have moved over to the left out of his way. Call us so we can go through it in more detail and look to see whether you have a good argument.
Q A
Can I get a drink driving ban reduced because I only drove a short distance?
Potentially, yes. This could be a special reason. In the case of Chatters –v- Burke the Divisional Court held that in order to amount to a special reason on the
NOVEMBER 2021
I was on the motorway and an Audi came right up behind me flashing his lights asking me to pullover. I wasn’t doing anything wrong so I put my foot down to put some distance between me and him and I was
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