Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hello,

I received a speeding letter (83 in a 70) back in October, I replied within time with a nominated driver, a friend. In December I then received a a further letter advising that after initial checks, the nominated driver is not named on the insurance (fully comp on own insurance) and therefore if I wish to proceed with the nomination to provide the nominated drivers, driving licence, insurance details etc. I sent this to my friend and asked him to send these details directly to the email address on the letter, to which he said he did. (appreciate it was my responsibility to reply directly). Anyway, 3 months has passed and last week I received a SJP outlining two charges, the original speeding plus failure to provide driver details. The evidence within the SJP shows the pictures of the car, plus the letters that have been sent, but not the 'interim letter' or any mention of me nominating another driver, which I therefore think means it has just defaulted back to me.

I have tried to contact said friend, who is ignoring me, so I suspect didn't ever email the additional information and obviously no longer wants to admit and take those 3 points or fine.

I am now at a loss as to how to reply to the SJP. Do I:

> Plead guilty to both charges - I believe will carry 9 points and whilst I don't have any other points, this is less than ideal. However, I have no proof to show it wasn't me driving, the cars in my name, and the nominated driver clearly isn't going to own up
> Plead guilty to the speeding but not the failure to provide - I have read this is the preferable thing to do as you can 'bargain' in your mitigation so that only the original 3 points are given. However, how can I say this when I did initially respond and provide the driver details
> Plead not guilty to both on the basis I believe it wasn't me that was driving and that I did initially respond

Any advice welcome!

Because how do I prove I wasn't the driver, when the car is registered to me and I'm unable to obtain the additional information that was asked of me (and missed the deadline to do this). I don't want to go guilty but equally don't want to put myself in a worse situation, I just wanted this sorted.

There are 2 charges. If I say not guilty to the speeding surely they won't just say ok no problem, they'll want to look into it further, someone needs to be charged for the speeding! The nominated driver hasn't responded to the additional information and so therefore the charge has defaulted back to me.

Edit, as above

...and put in the mitigation that a driver was nominated.

That is not mitigation. It is a defence to the charge.

To support the s172 charge the police will have to show that you did not provide the driver's details as required. You did. Whether or not he was insured is immaterial to that.

There seems to be no dispute that you did respond to the s172 request. The stance the police are taking is that the person you nominated was not insured to drive the car. So long as the details you gave for the driver are genuine you cannot be convicted of that offence.

You may, of course, find yourself charged with "permitting" uninsured driving. That is a different matter and you have not been charged with it.

For most traffic offences the police must bring charges within six months of the date of the offence. From memory I believe there is an exception provided for the "no insurance" offence in that the police must begin proceedings within six months of discovering evidence to support the charge (subject to an overall maximum of three years). Since they said in December they believed the driver you nominated was not covered, they have until June to bring those charges (assuming my grasp of the rule for charging for no insurance is correct).

I take it the details you provided for your friend are genuine, complete and correct?

Although you may not like it, I would suggest that the pragmatic approach to this one may be to plead not guilty to both charges at this stage then wait for the postal requisition for you to attend court.

At the initial hearing (it won't be a trial at that stage just a case management hearing) take along the letter from the police which acknowledges your nomination of the driver and show it to the prosecutor.  Take anything else you have as well.

A bit of common sense will probably see both charges dropped at that hearing.