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 following
I 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 This has resulted in withdrawn prosecutions, canceled fixed penalty notices (FPNs), and scrapped court convictions [1, 3].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]
