I recently became aware of 6 points on my licence and a conviction for failing to furnish ID (MS90) via my car insurance company contacting us about some difficulties with renewing the policy. The initial alleged offence was speeding (52 in a 40 mph limit). The initial police notice and all subsequent correspondence unfortunately went to a prior address.
Regrettably, the V5C logbook was the only thing that didn't update when I moved. The reason is that I simply did not know/appreciate that I had to inform DVLA twice - I notified them in regard to my driving licence, which has my current address, but did not know about the separate form required for V5C update. Essentially, an unfortunate administrative oversight/gap in my knowledge. I have now updated it! When we moved over two years ago we had a redirection service initially and thereafter have maintained an open channel of communication with the new owners in order that we could be notified if any mail inadvertently went there. I have been in touch with them since finding all this out and they have been really apologetic but essentially my letters were not noticed and then shoved away into a drawer and forgotten about. They have offered to provide a statement of truth in this regard.
Had I received the initial notice I would have taken the opportunity to settle the matter with a fixed penalty notice, 3 points and £100 fine. However, I did not get that opportunity. I have then be convicted of only the MS90 with 6 points and £1000 fine and an order for attachment of earnings has been put in place. I have been looking into my options and I understand that I need to make a statutory declaration (I have already started filling in the online form). My main questions are as follows:
1. Even though I have only been convicted of one charge there are still two charges against me as per the statement of facts the SJS sent me. When filling in the stat Dec form and it asks me about my pleas, do I need to plead to both charges? I'm assuming I do.
2. I have done some reading and taken some advice. It has been suggested to me that this is quite common and that the court will hear the circumstances and drop the failure to furnish charge if I offer to plead guilty to the initial speeding offence. However, I have seen conflicting advice on whether this would need to be achieved by pleading not guilty to both and putting in a caveat that I would plead guilty to the speeding if the other charge is dropped. Otherwise my plan is to plead guilty to speeding and not guilty to MS90 - is this sensible? Is it likely to succeed? (My preference is to do whatever is most likely to be agreed by the court).
3. Can I manage this on my own, without a solicitor?
4. Is it possible for this to ever go back to being a fixed penalty notice - hard reset/rewind type scenario where they just send out the initial correspondence again but to my current address and go from there.
Many thanks in advance.