Free Traffic Legal Advice

My other half has been suffering from mental health problems, and as such hasn't been opening their post. I opened one of their letters today and it was from Walsall Magistrates Court with the result of a case brought by the DVLA, to "keep a vehicle without a valid licence". I went through the stack of unopened letters and sure enough found a notice of a fine and then one for a Single Justice Procedure Notice.

The first letter was a "Penalty for untaxed vehicle", and was for £636 as an out of court settlement. It's not clear from the letter if this is simply a penalty or includes the back duty as well.

The second letter was a "Single Justice Procedure Notice, which states that if guilty there will be £85 costs and £403.34 back duty added. It does not make mention of the £636.

The final letter was the "Result of court case". which included the above £85 costs and £403.34 back duty, but also an "Excise Penalty" of £660.

Did the settlement figure in first letter include both the back-tax and the penalty?

I'm aware that a statutory declaration can be made, and a guilty plea can then be entered, but will that reduce any of the costs or is it now too late?

Are there any other consequences to this court case, is it a conviction that will affect credit scores or need to be declared in any job interviews for example?

Any advice or help will be greatly appreciated, trying to handle this for them while they get the treatment they need. 

Yes, the original Out of Court Settlement would have covered the back tax and a penalty. They deliberately discount this to encourage taking it up. The £636 is unrelated to any figure prosecuted at court.

You can do a SD, however what reason would you seek to reopen the case? The Out of Court settlement is gone and is (very) unlikely to be reoffered.

You might be able to seek a lower fine (as this will be 150% of weekly income, they will have used a figure of £440 due to no information being given), however this will be capped at a minimum of 5x the yearly tax owed on the car. Her income will be assumed to be £120 if she receives less than that. It will also require her attendance at court, potentially for half a day, so that needs to be born in mind for the calculations as well

The reason I would have them give for the SD would be poor mental health leading to the not opening of the post and that I was the one to discover it. I don’t know if that’s a valid reason,..

Bear in mind that unless you have some formal arrangement to deal with their affairs, it would have to be you O/H who has to make the SD, so that may create difficulties by itself. An SD can be performed when the defendant was unaware of the proceedings against them. I appreciate the mental health aspect, but I'm not sure whether a letter providing details of just that, left unopened on the sideboard, would qualify. A court has no option but to accept an SD (provided it is made within 21 days of the defendant becoming aware of the proceedings) and should not enquire into its veracity. However, a false statement would be an offence under the Perjury Act. I suppose if the defendant is genuinely unaware of the proceedings because of mental incapacity I suppose it would qualify but I imagine some medical evidence may be required. This is an interesting point to which I don't know the answer. Hopefully  somebody else does.

There is always, of course, the option to lobby the DVLA that, given the circumstances, it might not be in the public interest to re-start the prosecution if a way to sort the original conviction out can be found.

The grounds for a stat dec are simply that he was unaware of the proceedings. Service is neither here nor there.

Thanks for that, Andy. A bit off topic, but would that mean that if I (with, thankfully no mental issues) simply left an SJPN, unopened in its envelope on the sideboard, and was subsequently convicted, I could lawfully perform an SD?

If you simply did not open your post and were therefore unaware of the proceedings, you would have been unaware of the proceedings and therefore able to make a declaration under oath to that effect.

If you somehow knew that it was an SJPN and sought to avoid the proceedings by burying your head in the sand, then arguably you would have been aware of the proceedings, albeit not of the specifics.

A can of worms, methinks! Best end it there in case The Moderator steps in! Oh! Hang on.....