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Yesterday I discovered an unopened letter addressed to me (it was unfortunately put in a pile of papers out of sight by my wife) which turned out to be an unexpected SJP for failure to provide driver info for a speeding offence back in April 2024. Horrifyingly I was well past the 28 days deadline to respond (Guilty or Not Guilty) (SJP is dated 04/10/24)!

Completely blind-sided as i have no recollection of receiving the initial speeding offence letter requesting driver info, or ANY of the subsequent follow-ups (they claim to have sent 3 over the course of this year).

I immediately emailed the respective Police outlining I had not received any correspondence about the offence at all and have received the SJP unexpectedly (I realise I should have come here first before sending anything to anyone), and the only possibility is that all the correspondence was mislaid due to it all coinsiding with an incredibly stressful period this year with my mother-in-law being hospitalised for 2 months.

TODAY I received an email reply from the Police saying:
"We acknowledge receipt of your email below which has been received too late for this office to deal with. The file has already been passed to our Prosecutions department and you should shortly be receiving a Court Summons if you have not already done so."

TODAY I also received a Court Notice of fine and Collection order stating £1K fine and 6 points.
(I did not receive a court summons, but I assume this is because I didn't respond to the SJP in time)

Should I file a Statutory Declaration regarding not receiving anything until it was "too late"?

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You won’t have received a summons because you received an SJPN. You did not respond so you were tried in your absence (by a single justice sat in an office) and convicted and fined.

You are somewhat vague as to whether you did receive previous paperwork (e.g. the NIP) and it was simply mislaid (not a defence) or whether you never received it (maybe a defence).

And also address on one of the pages.

Presumably the photos show your car, and the address stated that they sent the NIPs to is correct?

This is effectively the summons and tells you what happens if you don't reply.  I don't know if you can stat dec this, since it clearly was delivered and you have it - others may be able to advise. If you could get it reset, and you were driving, then the plea bargain for guilty plea for speeding in return for them dropping the FTF might work, although you don't appear to have been dual charged, so maybe not.

Why you were unaware of the court proceedings is unimportant. When you make your Statutory Declaration (SD) you are swearing to confirm you were not aware of them.

You cannot do the "deal" mentioned above because the charge sheet does not mention speeding and you were not driving anyway.

You do not seem to have any defence against the "Fail to Provide" charge. You cannot really say with any certainty what you did or did not receive. The SD will nullify your conviction, points, fine and costs, etc. The problem is that the charge will be immediately put to you again and your only option is to plead guilty. The financial penalty may be reduced a little. The guidelines suggest a fine of 1.5 week's net income but this will be reduced by a third for your guilty plea, so a week's net income. You will also pay a surcharge of 40% of that fine and costs of £110.

You can work out whether or not it is worthwhile performing an SD and having the matter reheard.

I was going to add just that.

If you only had until 1st November to respond to the SJPN and you did not discover about the proceedings until 11th, there is every likelihood that your case had been dealt with by then, especially as you received the results of your hearing on 12th.

It is an interesting point to consider that if you perhaps found out (say) a couple of days before your case was to be heard under the SJ process technically you were aware of the proceedings before they took place. But you would not be in a position to respond or do much else about it as you cannot attend a SJ hearing. But I don't think that's the case here.

Quote from: BertB on November 13, 2024, 11:04:06 am

A stat dec is for people who were not aware of proceedings against them. From your own OP, you received a SJPN and contacted the Police about it. I'm not sure you can swear under oath that you were not aware of any proceedings against you on that basis.

I could swear i didn't know about the proceedings until November 11th, which was past the deadline (28days after Oct 4th)

That would be unwise, since you've told us on the 13th that you discovered the SJP "yesterday".

If you are thinking of pleading not guilty (on the basis that you - personally - did not receive any of the correspondence) I think you are in for disappointment. Having no recollection of having received any of the four items said to have been sent is not the same as not having received them and your description of the way you finally found out about this is unlikely to sway a court your way. Was your wife deliberately withholding your post?

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That would be unwise, since you've told us on the 13th that you discovered the SJP "yesterday".

The first post was in the early hours (1:38am) today (13th). I assumed that when the OP said "today" he received this, that and the other, he really meant the 12th but called it "today" as he hadn't yet gone to bed. He would have been unlikely to have received those items between midnight and 1:38am.

Exactly, thank you