KNOW YOUR RIGHTS TRIAL BY PAPERWORK
These days the vast majority of traffic offences are not dealt with by a police officer pulling someone over but instead are caught by a speed camera or dash cam, so the first the driver hears about it is when a letter comes through the door.
These letters are complex, use legal language that is not easy to understand and often don’t make the instructions clear. We regularly see drivers make errors within the paperwork that can really damage their case later down the line, as quite simply they don’t realise that they are now engaging in criminal proceedings.
Our advice always is that if you receive a letter through the post in relation to any offence at all, immediately seek legal advice.
The questions below are based around real enquiries where the initial paperwork has been an issue.
Case 1
Question: Hi, I have received a Single Justice Procedure Notice after allegedly being involved in a hit and run. Which is a plain lie. I have never been involved in any such thing!!
Back in March it is alleged that I clipped a parked vehicle with my wing mirror and did not stop or report the matter to the police.
I received a letter from the police accusing me of the hit and run and I immediately responded to confirm that I hadn’t been involved in any collision at all. They responded to say that I still had to nominate the driver, but they ignored everything I said. I was not going to incriminate myself by giving them all of my details so I wrote back and told them to take me to court.
But now the only charge against me is “failing to provide driver information”. They’re not even charging me with the hit and run anymore!! Is this something you can help with?
Answer: When a ‘hit and run’ is committed, the first thing the police need to do is identify the driver, and so they write to the registered keeper of the
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offending vehicle asking them to nominate the driver. If the keeper does not nominate, they are charged with failing to provide driver information. It sounds like that’s what's happened in your case.
What you should have done is nominate yourself. Nominating yourself is not an admission of guilt. You could have nominated yourself and still defended the charges by denying fault.
However, now you have simply been charged with failing to nominate, so we must look at why you did not nominate yourself as the driver. You may struggle to defend the charge if it was you driving, but you had simply refused to nominate yourself.
Outcome: In this particular case, the defendant was extremely fortunate in that whilst he hadn’t filled out the police form nominating himself, he had nominated himself in his letters. In his long responses to the police he had said that he accepted driving the car and he signed it. He’d also fortunately put the response on his personal headed paper, which had his full name and address on it.
So even though it wasn’t on the form that they provided or all in one place, he had actually given a signed letter with his full name, address and an admission to being the driver.
We managed to persuade the court that according to the case of DPP v Jones, a signed covering letter with all requested details is deemed an acceptable response, and the police in this case simply missed it. He was acquitted of the charges.
But if he hadn’t had signed the covering letter (which a lot of people don’t), or hadn’t responded on headed paper, he wouldn't have fulfilled his duty and he would have been facing 6 points and up to £1,000 fine.
Case 2
Question: I was recorded speeding at 24mph in a 20mph zone and was offered a speed awareness course. But I read the form wrong and I accidentally paid for the fixed penalty of 3 points and a £100 fine instead of the course. And now the police are saying it’s too late to reverse that. Is there anything you can help with?
OCTOBER 2025 PHTM
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