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Just so it's clear, as well as contacting your own personal insurance, get your father in law to contact his business insurance incase you have cover on that side instead.

I doubt this will go to court, a fixe penalty is the usual offer. Did the police let you drive away after they stopped you? If so that's a rarity as they usually make you walk home and the vehicle get lifted to the car pound.

I doubt that mitigating circumstances will help as no insurance is a clear-cut matter, either you've got it or you haven't.

Quote from: Southpaw82 on January 15, 2026, 03:31:58 pm

There is case law that says if no cover is in place at any given time, the defendant is still guilty of the offence even if the insurer “backdates” any cover.

Interesting, but if the business policy was to cover any vehicle, and OP would have been covered at the time regardless, surely OP would then be not guilty?

The concept of contesting a COFP is a nullity - you either accept it (you can't), or you don't. If you don't accept the COFP, then it has no bearing on anything else, and it is then open to the police (after the expiration of the 28 day suspended enforcement period) to instigate court proceedings - the same as if they had not issued the COFP.

N.B. The fine will be based on the sentencing guidelines, not the COFP, as explained by Daim456 above.

Quick sanity check - for the purposes of totting up, points count for 3 years from date of offence to date of offence - were all of your current points from offences committed less than 3 years before the current offence?