Free Traffic Legal Advice

Quote

Once the stat dec is done there will be two offences.

Only if he was "dual charged" in the first place.

Whilst its not 100% clear, the witness statement from the camera operator in the original SJPN bundle would lean me toward thinking he was.

I’ll go back to hMCTS and ask for the case number for the FTF and see if I can get the papers for that which may show dual offences?
There aren’t any other outstanding offences I’m aware of (I went to my local police station last week and although they couldn’t give me any paperwork the officer said he’d checked all my details and there wasn’t anything else he could see) and I have 6 points, MS90 applied recently

I think what's confusing is that when you contacted the court after you received a further steps notice about the FTF conviction, the court sent you a SJPN and witness statement relating only to the original speeding charge.

That's a bit confusing for a few reasons.

First, if you were contacting the court about the FTF conviction that you knew nothing about, why didn't they send you the FTF SJPN relating to that conviction that you were asking about rather than the original speeding SJPN?

Second, my understanding of what usually happens when someone fails to identify the driver is that they receive a single SJPN charging them separately with both offences: (1) speeding and (2) FTF.  Again the question arises as to why the court has sent you a copy of a SJPN that only bears a speeding charge.  Why didn't the SJPN dual charge you?

Third, if you never identified yourself as the driver, how was a SJPN charging you with a single chrge of speeding raised at all?

However, if you only have 6 points for a FTF/MS90 conviction on your licence and you have no other charges pending you are probably ok and only need to sort out the statutory declaration for the FTF conviction


[Edit: I'm sure you realise this now but when you contact the courts again make sure they understand that you want details associated with the FTF conviction]

Quote

However, if you only have 6 points for a FTF/MS90 conviction on your licence and you have no other charges pending you are probably ok and only need to sort out the statutory declaration for the FTF conviction

But he needs to know whether or not he was "dual charged" so as yo decide how to proceed when the charge(s) are put to him again.

Yes - of course.  I see what you mean, but... if the court has sent him a SJPN relating only to speeding and he's been convicted of FTF, doesn't that mean that he must have been dual charged?

He already has the details of the speeding SJPN so isn't it only the FTF details that he needs now?  That is what I was trying to convey, perhaps not very well, at the end of my previous post.  I certainly don't want to suggest the OP do anything that might prejudice his chances of getting the best outcome he can at this stage.

Pointless speculation but do you think there must be another SJPN for the FTF that - for whatever reason - the court didn't see fit to pass on to the OP when he enquired about the conviction?  Seems rather odd to me that the court didn't either pass on a SJPN with two charges on it, or - if there were two separate SJPNs - that they didn't pass on both.

If I were the OP I'd want to know what had happened and not be worrying there might be more surprises for me...

What [the OP has told us that] the court has told/supplied to the OP makes little sense.
Until the OP receives (and shares) meaningful information from the court, I suggest that posters refrain from idle speculation or other irrelevant noise.

That is pretty much correct.

In practice you will discuss this with the prosecutor on the day, before you swear your SD (you won't actually discuss the details in open court).

As soon as your SD is sworn the Clerk to the Court will put the initial offence to you again, you plead guilty and then the prosecutor will withdraw the FTP charge.  Job done!

You will be fined, endorsed and sent on your way.

... Am I right to answer that yes I’m guilty of the original offence on the proviso the FTP is set aside?
Thanks for anyone reading this and any further guidance.
Rich

Sorry but I think that is a really arse-about way of looking at this.

Assuming you were dual charged with speeding and failure to identify, you plead "NOT GUILTY" to both offences, but you tell the prosecutor that you would be willing to change your plea in respect of the speeding to "Guilty" if - and only if - they agree to drop the failure to identify charge.  You don't set out by saying "Yes I'm guilty" of anything.  Rather you say "Not guilty but..."

I think I may have made a mistake on the SD online! It asked I if I’m pleading guilty to the original offence. And gives a box to tick and a box for text. I checked the I am guilty box and put some text relating to pleading guilty to the original offence if the subsequent offence was quashed. Is this correct or should I have checked the not guilty box??? Now feeling really stupid and worried I’ve just pled guilty to another offence on top!! Thank you to all who have given their advice so far.

As far as I can recall the only offence you have been convicted of so far is failure to identify the driver, and that is the offence that you are swearing the SD in respect of.  When the online form refers to what you describe as the "original offence", is it talking about the original speeding offence or is it talking about the failure to identify?

I may be mistaken but I suspect that the original offence is the failure to identify - the only offence you have been convicted of - so pleading guilty is quite likely a mistake and defeats the purpose of doing the SD in the first place.

But don't panic!  See what other posters more expert than me say...

NB - weren't you going to clarify with the court if you'd been dual charged or not?  It's being dual charged that gets you the best result here because you need the speeding charge to bargain with

Ok, not the best way of handling things but I think you can still get the result you want.

Just proceed as has already been set out.  The first thing is the SD, that will then effectively take you back to the beginning.

With you having already spoken with the prosecutor, the court will then put the speeding charge back to you first, then you plead guilty to that charge in open court.

Then the prosecutor will withdraw the FTP charge.

I’ll go back and clarify what ‘original offence’ refers to.

As far as the SD goes, the "original offence" can only be the one of which you were convicted - failure to provide the driver's details.

The important thing is to make sure you maintain Not Guilty pleas to both offences until you have an assurance that the FtP charge will be dropped if you plead guilty to speeding.