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Hi all,
I've just surprisingly received notice that a NIP for speeding has been cancelled as: Kent police have been made aware of an issue relating to a number of speed enforcement cases in the UK. As a "precaution" there will no further action in relation to the case, and consequently this offence has been cancelled.
Is anyone aware at all what these issues with enforcement cases may be? IF not, what would be the best way to get this information from Kent police, would a FOI request be the best avenue?
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Where did the alleged offence occur?
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One of the vital questions of our time, clearly…
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With all due deference to those above my pay grade, if there is an ongoing issue that we are not aware, whose nature is such that the police are unilaterally dropping cases, then I, and I would suggest the site as a whole, would very much like to know what this issue is.
However.
If Kent Police were minded to divulge the nature of this issue (which they clearly aren't), presumably they would have done so.
If anyone was aware of the nature of the issue, and was both able and willing to divulge it, they would presumably have done so, without waiting for a thread such as this.
Utilising the knowledge and experience of this forum, it is possible that we might be able to make an educated guess as to the nature of the issue referred to by the OP, if the OP had not chosen not to trouble us with the details of the now cancelled allegation, or the exact wording of the letter from Kent Police.
TL;DR - perhaps the OP can clarify why they have decided to bother us with half the story. -
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We’ve seen whole sessions dropped where the location was wrong etc.
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If we can reasonably assume that neither the OP, nor Kent Police sought to deliberately mislead with their wording, then this does not sound site-specific.
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The alleged offense occurred on the 6th of Aug on the M25 anti-clockwise Junction 5, Westerham. There was a temporary speed restriction of 50 mph due to roadworks.
I'm afraid there isn't much more to it, nor to the communication received from the police. Since I didn't see any threads on this, nor anything reported by Kent police or news elsewhere, I assume that these cancellations weren't announced publicly. So I thought to check with the experts on this forum for the best way to get more details, through a FOI request perhaps.
I've linked to a copy of the cancellation since the exact wording was requested: https://imgpile.com/p/2GBOJEQ. -
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a consequence of this case possibly although it might be a bit old..
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3wpq1n8e61o.amp
Mr Anderson said prosecution evidence in other speeding cases could also be "questionable" after his case was dropped.
“When new evidence came to light, and after a thorough review of the evidence, we concluded that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction, and the case was discontinued.” -
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So, the wording was essentially quoted in the OP's OP, albeit somewhat discreetly and unconventionally.
Googling the passage (with extraneous quotation marks removed) suggests that there is a potential issue with VSL enforcement (or at least some VSL enforcement). On faceache, a poster who had an SAC booked - for 68 in a VSL 60 on the M6 in Cheshire received an email cancelling the SAC (with promise of refund) with near identical wording ("Kent Police" replaced with "We").
2 cases is not a statistically significant number, but they appear to be consistent with other less specific noise.
AIUI, location description errors are conventionally almost invariably from mobile enforcement, although there is an argument, often dismissed out of hand by Magistrates who failed to understand the question, of unduly vague locus where the locus stated covers many miles. However, I would be surprised if such an issue lead to pre-emptive dropping.
Google AI (which I wouldn't trust to tell me how many "r"s in the word "strawberry) has cobbled together the followingQuoteI am aware of a widely reported issue concerning a number of speed enforcement cases handled by the Kent Police and other forces [1]. Due to concerns raised about the reliability of evidence from a specific speed camera type and processing methods, police forces have taken precautionary measures [2, 3].
As reported in various news outlets, the Kent Police, along with other forces such as the Metropolitan Police, are reviewing thousands of cases. In a significant number of instances where the evidence may be compromised, no further action is being taken [1, 2, 4]. This has resulted in withdrawn prosecutions, canceled fixed penalty notices (FPNs), and scrapped court convictions [1, 3].
Key details include:
The issue primarily relates to cases that relied on the Home Office-approved Jenoptik SPECS average speed camera system [4, 5].
The concerns involve the process of manually extracting footage from the camera systems to check the secondary evidential photograph, a procedure which some legal experts argued might not meet strict legal requirements for data integrity [4, 5].
In one specific case at the Magistrates' Court, a judge ruled that the digital evidence provided could not be trusted due to potential manipulation risks during the manual review process [2, 4, 5].
Police forces emphasized that these actions were taken as a precaution to ensure fairness and uphold the integrity of the justice system [3, 4].
Individuals who believe their case may be affected should have already been contacted by the relevant police force if their case was pending [4]. If you have specific questions about a past or current case, you should contact the Kent Police directly for clarification.
Many years ago, there was a landmark case in Australia where digital evidence was excluded on the basis that it was technically possibly to modify it (IIRC a weakness in the MD5 algorithm) - which was very much inconsistent with English case law - so I would be very surprised if there was a co-ordinated response by police forces nationally to drop VSL cases on the basis that a Magistrates' Court found that a State Level Actor could potentially falsify the evidence - when pretty much all other prosecution evidence could potentially be falsified far more easily.[/quote]
If we ignore experience and take numerous OPs claims at face value, there is potential for a disconnect between the VSL logs of when limits were displayed and what was actually displayed at the time. If somebody had dash-cam footage (which hadn't been obviously falsified) which supported such a claim, and that went to court, that would be a far more plausible explanation.
Whilst we have always been far quieter than PePiPoo was back in the day (as was PePiPoo after "the day", whenever that was), as this is the first we are hearing of what appears to potentially be a national issue, it would seem likely that any fall-out is just starting and a slightly clearer picture will emerge.
Whether or not it's worth ordering some more popcorn is another matter.
[edit: How slow is my typing? Cross posted with Mick's post] -
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Is anyone aware at all what these issues with enforcement cases may be? IF not, what would be the best way to get this information from Kent police, would a FOI request be the best avenue?
Thanks
I have submitted an FOI to Kent Police. let's see what they come back with. -
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They might not tell you.
There is an exemption in the FOI Act that does not require information to be released if it might prejudice the prevention and detection of crime.
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There is an exemption in the FOI Act that does not require information to be released if it might prejudice the prevention and detection of crime.
I would argue that if the prejudice has already occurred (because the crime cannot be effectively prevented or detected while the existing issue (whatever it is) remains in place), then disclosure cannot cause any further prejudice so the exemption is not engaged. -
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On faceache, a poster who had an SAC booked - for 68 in a VSL 60 on the M6 in Cheshire received an email cancelling the SAC (with promise of refund) with near identical wording ("Kent Police" replaced with "We").
Also the following post, possibly from the same page but for a different event on the M1.QuoteHI, I received a notice for speeding on the M1 by Nottinghamshire police for doing 57 in a temporary 50 zone. Fair enough.
I was all booked in to take the course and received a letter from the police stating:
"We write regarding a notice of intended prosecution recently sent to you under section 172 road traffic act 1988 in relation to the above offence. We have been made aware of an issue relating to a number of speed enforcement cases in the UK . As a precaution there will be no further action in relation to this case. Yours faithfully ..."
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The alleged offense occurred on the 6th of Aug on the M25 anti-clockwise Junction 5, Westerham. There was a temporary speed restriction of 50 mph due to roadworks.
was the temp limit signed by static temp roundals or by the VSL signs (gantry)? -
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Quote
"We write regarding a notice of intended prosecution recently sent to you under section 172 road traffic act 1988 in relation to the above offence.
I wasn't aware that s172 of the Road Traffic Act required a Notice of Intended Prosecution to be sent. You learn something new every day. -
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