Free Traffic Legal Advice
Live cases legal advice => Speeding and other criminal offences => Topic started by: cyss2 on August 24, 2026, 01:14:21 pm
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If we take what the DVLA said (possibly in the external thread NJ linked) at face value (that the court applied the endorsement directly via a remote link, and DVLA had no involvement in the process beyond it being their database) then the fault lay solely with the court, and the court appear to have agreed to resolve the matter. If and when this will happen, is another matter - although saying that they are going to send it today is promising.
Whilst we don't see many of these cases, they are probably the most frustrating as we are generally dealing with 2 intransigent public bodies who consider it not to be their problem, and we have limited understanding of the nuts and bolts of the process.
If anyone happens to have access to a tame magistrates' court legal advisor, it would be potentially very helpful going forward to understand as much detail of how the endorsements are currently applied as possible - from the court's perspective, as whilst I am more than happy to accept the possibility that the DVLA's explanation as to how it's absolutely not their fault could potentially be both true and accurate, I would consider it somewhat rash to take their account at face value without some form of independent corroboration.
If we can be certain that the court dropped the ball, other than asking them nicely to pick it back up again, or asking your MP to shout at someone, the legal recourse would still seem to be Judicial Review.
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Just an update on the situation so far:
The DVLA have acknowledged my complaint about the situation with no firm timeline about when they will reply.
I have gotten around to updating the address on my driving license in hopes that this won't happen again, but have yet to receive my updated license.
The MC have agreed to send a form to the DVLA today requesting that the points be removed from my license.
My insurance company have decided to let the points stand for now until the DVLA decide to take the points off themselves.
I suppose I'll see how things shake out for now. I guess I could always try to complain to the ICO if this doesn't work out?
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OP: Have you submitted a SAR to DVLA yet (include specifically for any information / communications that reference said endorsements)? Whilst the people on web chat and the phones may not have access to or see the court requests, the data controller or assistant may well be able to.
You may also have some luck contacting your local MP. https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
Have you told your insurer that you are following this up, and keeping them updated? It may be that they enforce you to pay a slightly increased premium (which ideally you'd get refunded if this does turn out to be a complete stuff-up).
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The court have the date, the judgement and your licence number. It shouldn't be too hard to track down the case...
Is that necessarily right?
If the error is at DVLA's end (eg a transposition error or "fat finger" error) it may not help the mags court to know the OP's DL number (or name and DOB)
All we know (or can presume) is that somebody else's conviction got wrongly recorded against the OP's licence (and name).
Depending on the nature and extent of the error (and who committed it) the mags court may have no details that can be linked to the OP.
(I am assuming the court have already genuinely tried to find these details and have failed. Or at least that is what they have told the OP. I suppose the next step would be for court staff to look at every relevant conviction on the date in question and check to see if those convictions have been recorded against the correct licences and drivers by the DVLA. Or perhaps they have the power to direct the DVLA to do that?)
You have more or less just repeated my suggestion. If the DVLA do not keep records (Shocking but unsurprising) the only course of action is via the MC. Given the detail known versus the potential detail unknown, they should still be in a position to recover the documentation regarding the conviction with the information the OP has.
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You may be interested in this thread from another forum, which dealt with a very similar problem to yours:
https://nationalconsumerservice.co.uk/topic/474462-someone-elses-offence-and-points-on-my-driving-licence-record-at-dvla/
You will see there was eventually a satisfactory outcome, but that was more by virtue of a bit of luck and a following wind than anything either the court or the DVLA did.
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I've never read any Kafka, but I know what Kafkaesque means.
We are dealing with two intransigent and incompetent state bodies who both both consider themselves to be *the law* (or otherwise above the law), and that this isn't their problem. Taking what the OP has told us at face value, one of them has f*cked up (possibly both, but Occam's razor suggests that that is unlikely).
Both bodies are overseen (to a greater or lesser extent) by the relevant ministers, and the High Court has supervisory jurisdiction over all public bodies that are not directly answerable to Parliament.
The "appeal of last resort" is an application for Judicial Review (the High Court). If all else fails, IMHO the last resort would be to apply for a Judicial Review against both parties - Nottinghamshire Magistrates' Court and the DVLA. Whilst presumably one of those parties is innocent, the guilty party would be responsible for the innocent party necessarily being dragged through the process.
A Judicial Review application, as with virtually all litigation, has a pre-action protocol. That protocol (basically a Letter Before Action) might serve to readjust their "not my problem" attitude, although I wouldn't hold my breath.
Logically, if the court will inform the DVLA that they never ordered the endrosement of your licence, then it would seem to be irrational for the DVLA not to rescind the endorsement, and in the same vein, if the court were minded to do that, it would seem irrational for them not to further instruct the DVLA to rescind the endorsement.
What it is important to *focus* on what you know, rather than what you merely suspect, if this issue is the result of fraud (and perjury/perverting the course of justice/contempt of court/etc.) then the court could potentially have been blameless in their actions (although as a matter of law the conviction must be wrong, regardless of whether they should have known) - but *if* they did convict you wrongly due to fraud, they were IMHO clearly wrong not to find any record of it.
Personally, I consider endorsing a driver's licence without retaining a copy of the instruction to be exceedingly arrogant and systemically incompetent - or from the DVLA's perspective, business as usual.
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The court have the date, the judgement and your licence number. It shouldn't be too hard to track down the case...
Is that necessarily right?
If the error is at DVLA's end (eg a transposition error or "fat finger" error) it may not help the mags court to know the OP's DL number (or name and DOB)
All we know (or can presume) is that somebody else's conviction got wrongly recorded against the OP's licence (and name).
Depending on the nature and extent of the error (and who committed it) the mags court may have no details that can be linked to the OP.
(I am assuming the court have already genuinely tried to find these details and have failed. Or at least that is what they have told the OP. I suppose the next step would be for court staff to look at every relevant conviction on the date in question and check to see if those convictions have been recorded against the correct licences and drivers by the DVLA. Or perhaps they have the power to direct the DVLA to do that?)
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If you really are getting nowhere, then it would be worth writing to (emailing) your MP, being very clear (but concise) what the position is and what you want done about it. If you can engage them, MPs have more influence as public bodies will jump a bit higher when that letter from an MP arrives. Don't start on the conspiracy theories about your ex, just stick to the known facts and the obstinacy/finger pointing of the DVLA/MC.
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The court have the date, the judgement and your licence number. It shouldn't be too hard to track down the case. It is more a case of you are dealing with a group of people who don't want to do it. But keep at them. There is no way that they can claim t0 have applied justice correctly if they have punished the wrong person.
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If anyone's interested, this is the current situation:
- DVLA won't help as they say they don't keep any records of the court instruction, but would accept a request from the MC to remove the endorsement
- The MC have no records of any case on file with my records, so are deferring to the police
- The police aren't able to search for other people's records on my behalf, so unless I miraculously get my ex to confess or something it's not going anywhere
At this point I might as well just ask my insurance if they want to have a gander...
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I think as much as the vindictive Sister-in-Law angle is intriguing (and potentially entertaining), that neither the Police nor Courts have a record of a conviction in your name, or any action issued in your name or against your VRN would suggest this is probably an admin error.
I couldn't find the post Andy was referencing earlier that I also recall, where I think the OP had multiple convictions due to a ticket scamming operation, but I did find this one from last year.
https://www.ftla.uk/speeding-and-other-criminal-offences/incorrect-endorsement-information-on-my-driving-licence-advice/ (https://www.ftla.uk/speeding-and-other-criminal-offences/incorrect-endorsement-information-on-my-driving-licence-advice/)
They may not have any record against Paul Jones, but that doesn't mean they haven't messed up processing Phil Jones' conviction who happens to have the same birthdate.
Edit. As Andy said, the DVLA being helpful is a sign of impending doom. However the DVLA being helpful but denying they f**ked up is probably likely and resets the threat level.
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I think you need to take a step back.
All you know is what you have been told by your insurers. They say you have been convicted by Nottingham Magistrates’ Court. The details you posted in post #9 confirms that it was indeed a conviction from a Magistrate’s’ Court (rather than a fixed penalty).
The police say no action has been taken for any offences involving your car. Nottingham court has no convictions in your name and nobody has been chasing you for payment of the fine and costs etc. (which will amount to about £400). With a conviction date four months ago, I should have thought they would have been on to you by now.
If your suspicion about your ex’s sister is correct, I doubt she has paid £400 just to see you with three points on your licence. If anybody knocked on her door demanding money with menaces, I imagine she would have given them your address.
The most likely explanation for me is that somebody else was convicted in the Nottingham court for an offence involving a car other than yours. They have paid the fine, etc., but there has been an error made, either by the court or the DVLA, in the process used see the endorsement added to your record.
I think you must find out from the DVLA who instructed them to endorse your licence. They need to check what they have done to ensure they have not made an error. If they have not, you must go to whoever instructed them.
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If the DVLA are being helpful (which I believe is one of the signs of an impending apocalypse), then I would be minded to try to get as much info from them as possible - to try to narrow down exactly what info was provided by the court - before asking the court again.
A question that the webchat people would probably need to escalate is what they (the DVLA) would require (presumably from the court) in order to rescind the endorsement applied in response to an ostensibly lawful instruction from the court.
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Interesting.
For the record - I have discussed with the police and my car has never had any speeding tickets recorded in Nottingham/Leicester, so clearly the ticket was incurred on a different car.
My best guess is that my ex's sister incurred a speeding ticket in her own car (as while my ex didn't have a car at the time, her sister had a car with her partner), named me as the driver (possibly with partial information) when the NIP arrived and stated that all further correspondence should be directed to her address, and ignored all subsequent correspondence. The police don't seem too convinced about this angle (not least because I don't know her full address/car reg) because in theory I should have received a notice if she did so.
I guess the remaining options now would be to try and chase the MC for a case number under the assumption that the address they may have on file for me is wrong, or alternatively to try and get the DVLA to dig up further details about the court instruction?
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£220 is not a fixed penalty. It is exactly the fine you would expect for a Band A offence (see Mags' Sentencing Guidelines (https://sentencingcouncil.org.uk/guidelines/speeding-revised-2017/)) with no discount for a guilty plea (e.g. SJPN ignored) and an assumed RWI of £440 (no statement of means submitted).
This is consistent (but not conclusive) with someone naming (and purporting to be) you in response to a NIP addressed to you, and then burying their head in the sand when an SJPN arrived in your name.
Absent compelling reasons to the contrary, speeding cases should be heard at the court nearest to the offence, or a "linked court". Not sure whether the SJPN process would be an exception to this (it is not a conventional hearing).
Unless the DVLA have managed to outdo themselves on this occasion, an order for endorsement under your name (whether purporting to be you or someone else with the same name) came from Nottinghamshire Magistrates' Court on April 20th. Other than similarly not being fit for purpose, it is inexplicable (and/or unacceptable) that they are unable to find any record of that.
*If* the court are that incompetent, what can we be sure of?
Logically, either the court have f*cked up, or the DVLA have. Have you asked the DVLA webchat people if they have access to the instruction from the court? Did it have your correct and full name, date of birth and driver number?
Going back to the spite angle, would your ex have had access to the property when a NIP would have arrived (within 14 days of the date of offence if it was your vehicle and you are/were the RK with up to date details)? Unless paperwork sent to you as RK was intercepted, there is every reason to believe that your vehicle was not involved in the offence.
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Yes, but it was over the phone, which is why I have written to them for further information.
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So you know the conviction date but Nottingham Magistrates court has no record of it?
Presumably they checked by your name
Do you have a very common name which could be confused with somebody else's?
Have they checked by your DL number?
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If it helps:
Offence code: SP30
* Offence: Exceeding statutory speed limit on a public road
* Penalty points: 3 points
* Offence date: 14 October 2025
* Conviction date: 20 April 2026
* Penalty points expiry date: 14 October 2028
* Endorsement removal date: 14 October 2029
* Fine: £220
* Court: Nottinghamshire Magistrates’ Court
* Current driving status: Full UK driving licence
* Total endorsements: 1 offence, 3 points
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N.B. Started typing this a few posts ago...
For the sake of completeness, unless there has been an almighty snafu, 3 points for speeding do not get put on your licence unless someone has given what would appear to be your details, as their own details, as driver.
For speeding, either the driver is stopped at the time by the police and gives their details (or potentially someone else's), or a NIP with s. 172 requirement to name the driver is sent to the RK. If the RK is not the driver, they nominate the driver (or keeper), who receives their own notice, until the recipient responds admitting to being the driver.
Your driver record on the DVLA portal should show the convicting court code (off the top of my head, not sure whether this would be the same code for a fixed penalty processed by the Fixed Penalty Clerk) - but a fixed penalty would be £100 and the chances of a fine being exactly £100 are slim.
Conventional wisdom suggests that unless a person holds a foreign licence, it should not be possible to accept a fixed penalty without providing their licence number and date of birth (which is trivially encoded into the licence number).
<mod hat on>
Before we descend any further into rabbit holes of speculation, it would seem to be prudent for the OP to confirm whether the fine amount was £100 on their driver record, and any other information that might be relevant (without unnecessarily disclosing sensitive identifiable personal information
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Regarding the fraud angle, I suppose it is possible - I was going through a bad breakup at the time and it's possible that my ex's sister could have done all that to spite me, and she would have had access to a copy of my driving license as I had used it as proof of ID to apply to be her guarantor.
...Well that's taken a very dark turn! It would be a monumentally stupid thing for them to do as it could involve jail time if convicted of PCoJ. (As doesn't seem too hard to chase the evidence trail)
As noted, above it may be a frustrating process as the DVLA and MC may well point at each other...
Finding out for certain whether you were actually convicted in absence would be a significant breakthrough.
But if an endorsement with a convicting court is present then putting it out there, would performing a SD potentially flush out issues, one way or another?
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Thanks - it all does seem a little bizarre. I have been on the DVLA webchat all day today and didn't get very far other than the same suggestion to contact the Nottingham Magistrates Court.
Regarding the fraud angle, I suppose it is possible - I was going through a bad breakup at the time and it's possible that my ex's sister could have done all that to spite me, and she would have had access to a copy of my driving license as I had used it as proof of ID to apply to be her guarantor.
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We have seen similar previously. I can't recall ever seeing a resolution - or perhaps more importantly I can't recall anything which illustrated a simple resolution that didn't involve the OP banging their head against several brick walls, whilst dealing with seemingly intransigent public bodies.
Working backwards, logically, somebody (a court or fixed penalty clerk) has instructed the DVLA to endorse a licence with 3 points. Who that was and what information was provided is something that the DVLA would be best placed to answer - if it were not for the fact that they are more intransigent than HMCTS.
As regards a stat. dec. - technically it is not applicable if *you* were not convicted. However, if we were at the point where it was established to the satisfaction of all parties that court X convicted "you", and that was the only way to get the case re-opened, I would consider it to be the only option, other than the appeal of last resort (Judicial Review).
There is potential for distinctions to tread worrying close to FMOTL bollox - if the OP's name is fraudulently provided, when does the name equate to the person? IMHO when the information provided meant that the DVLA had no choice but to endorse the OP's licence (as opposed to same/similar name, close enough, not my problem).
On the basis that intransigence might result in having to lodge an out of time appeal of some description, I would suggest that it is more important than in most cases where it is already important that the OP keeps a contemporaneous diary of all communications in respect of this matter. And is as proactive as is reasonably conducive to retaining sanity.
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I think your next stop must be the DVLA.
I seems strange that your insurers know the details of this but the court that allegedly convicted you doesn’t. You need to ask the DVLA who told them to endorse your licence.
I don’t think a Statutory Declaration will be the way to go unless and until you discover the court details. A court will not accept a declaration from you to say you knew nothing about a conviction which nobody else seems to know anything about either.
I’m just trying to think through what might have happened if this was a case of fraud. Somebody would have to have received a request for driver’s details, named you, but at their address. Then, if they (or rather you) were offered a fixed penalty, they must have accepted it in your name. But to do that they would need your DL details.
Seems a bit of a rigmarole to go through (coupled with the risk of an allegation of attempting to pervert the course of justice) to avoid three points and a hundred quid. It’s all a bit odd.
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No - my insurance company notifying me was the first time hearing about all of this. I'm not even sure if I was in Notts at the time as I don't normally travel there - I did have plans to see a friend there around that time but didn't end up going as she cancelled it.
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Has nobody been in touch with you since then to try to collect the fine/costs etc?
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I was recently notified by my insurance company on 21 August 2026 while renewing my insurance that there was a discrepancy on my driving record and on checking online I apparently have an unpaid speeding ticket and 3 points issued on 14 October 2025 that falls under the jurisdiction of Nottinghamshire Magistrates Court (date of conviction 20 April 2026).
As it was 3 points (as opposed to 6 points for failing to furnish) it seems likely your DL has been incorrectly endorsed - either deliberately (fraudulently) or by error (matched the wrong DL).
All roads seem to lead, for now, to the MC as they would have actioned the endorsement with the DVLA.
(If you have been convicted in absence then promptly applying for a Statutory Declaration would be of paramount importance)
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Hi all,
I was recently notified by my insurance company on 21 August 2026 while renewing my insurance that there was a discrepancy on my driving record and on checking online I apparently have an unpaid speeding ticket and 3 points issued on 14 October 2025 that falls under the jurisdiction of Nottinghamshire Magistrates Court (date of conviction 20 April 2026).
I did not receive any communication about this and on reviewing my records I am not sure how this happened, as I normally live in Leicester and had no reason to be going to Nottingham on that day. I do not have a case number on hand as I never received a court summons, NIP or S172 notice.
I have called the Leicester speed camera team and the SJS line at Nottingham Magistrates Court on Friday and was advised that they were unable to find any records of speeding tickets or court proceedings under my name or car registration. Similarly, the Nottingham speed camera team have now emailed me to say that they have no records of any speeding offense. I have now emailed Nottingham Magistrates Court to request written confirmation that they have no records of any case under my name.
In this situation, how would you advise that I proceed?