KNOW YOUR RIGHTS Q A
A
You have done the right thing by pleading guilty. Driving without insurance is a strict liabil- ity offence. This means the law is very simple, if you have insurance then you are not guilty, and
if you don’t then you are guilty.
However, you may have a special reasons argument available. If we are successful in presenting special rea- sons you would receive no penalty points, even though you have pleaded guilty. The argument would be on the basis that firstly you genuinely believed you were in- sured and secondly, and importantly, that this belief was based on reasonable grounds.
In order to support the argument I would suggest that we take statements from your wife, your brother-in-law, your mother-in-law and your father-in-law, as they will all be able to support the fact that your father-in-law was responsible for arranging the insurance policy and so none of you would have realised that you were not on the policy.
I would also suggest getting as many historical insur- ance documents as we can showing that you have al- ways been on the insurance and so would never question it. That would also help to show that this was clearly not an intention to avoid costs.
A key part of this case is going to be about how much you knew about the insurance. If your father-in-law has always arranged the insurance policy it would be per- fectly reasonable, in my opinion, for you to believe that the policy was continuing as normal. But if you were in- strumental in arranging the policy or had regular con- versations with your father-in-law about it, the court may suggest that you ought to have known or at the very least ought to have checked. This I would like to discuss with you in more detail.
SEPTEMBER 2020
I have just received a Notice of Intended Prosecution for speeding three months ago. Am I able to reject it on the basis that it is out- side of 14 days?
The notion that you can simply “reject” a Notice of Intended Prosecution is actually a flawed conception
You will have received a combined Notice of Intended Prosecution together with a request for driver informa- tion. Even though they are usually on the same piece of paper, they are very different. You still have to respond nominating the driver. Failure to do so could see you re- ceive six penalty points and up to a £1,000 fine.
Nominating yourself as the driver is not an admission of guilt, it is simply accepting that you were the driver and you would then likely be prosecuted for speeding. How- ever, you can still defend the speeding offence on the basis that the Notice of Intended Prosecution was out of time.
But it very much depends on the facts of the case. A Notice of Intended Prosecution has to be served on the registered keeper within 14 days at their last known ad- dress. So if you are not the registered keeper, or if your vehicle is registered at an old address, then the first Notice may well have gone to the correct address and so would comply with the law.
There are also other ways a Notice of Intended Prosecution can be given – it can be given to the driver directly or even verbally at the roadside.
There are exceptions to the rule as well, for example if an accident has occurred or if the police couldn’t with reasonable diligence have ascertained the registered keeper’s address then the law says a notice is not even needed.
So before you reject the Notice of Intended Prosecu- tion, call us for free initial advice so we can decide whether defending the matter on this basis is indeed the best course of action for you to take moving forward.
This impartial advice has been provided by Patterson Law Solicitors
www.pattersonlaw.co.uk 93
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