Free Traffic Legal Advice

Failure to ID Driver and speeding

Hi,

So, i’m very inexperienced in this situation, and looking for some advice.

Basically 26/11/2023, i received an NIP for speeding 36mph in 30 in england. We replied to the NIP asking for pictures and it still wasn’t clear who the driver was, which there were 3 people at the time on the insurance so it could have been any of us. At the time we checked bank records, any potential emails and texts to see if we could figure out who the driver was to no luck.

a couple months later (after the 28 day NIP response time) we figured out who the driver was, being my father and he will admit to the speeding, with my Mother stating that she remembers him using the car at that point. Initially, we had no reason to ask her as she was not a named driver on my car, it was only me, my dad and my sister. So didn’t have too much reason to ask her.

After this point, i sent a letter of the police owning up to my father admitting he was driving and will happily provide a statement.

21/06/2024, i have now got another letter - single justice procedure asking to plead guilty or not guilty to both charges, which i plead not guilty to, seems like they didn’t receive my letter of admitting it was my dad, but i had heard nothing for months so assumed it was dealt with.

As of today, i have now got a hearing for August 8th on my case, my dad is still willing and happy to admit he was the driver at the time of the alleged offence, so the speeding charge should be fine and that will be him prosecuted for that. Although, the failure to ID charge, will this be dropped or how can i go about this?

*Edit* Just to add, all 3 drivers have 0 points and would have been offered a course on this, i understand speeding is wrong regardless, but we had no reason to hide/not identify the driver on purpose since it would have been a lesser punishment. It also says it’s a hearing before a full magistrate’s court if that makes it any different?

Thanks for your reply, and i understand about the 6 months having passed. Although from what i see from a bunch of other forums, if you plead guilty to speeding they will drop the failure to ID.

I assume we cannot take the speeding charge, so the only option is to defend the Failure to ID charge?

As regards trying to do a deal, the consensus here is that pleading guilty to an offence that you know you did not commit in order to avoid a harsher punishment for something that you did do is perverting the course of justice.

That leaves the choice of trying to defend the s. 172 charge, or pleading guilty to it.

If you plead guilty, you should expect 6 points (endorsement code MS90), a fine of 1.5 weeks' relevant weekly income (minus whatever discount is left of the 1/3 for an early guilty plea), 40% surcharge of the fine, and ~£95 prosecution costs.

If you maintain your not guilty plea and lose, you would lose whatever discount you might have got for a guilty plea and prosecution costs would be likely to be ~£620.

If you win, no points, no fine, no surcharge, no prosecution costs, and you get to claim your expenses (mostly just travel costs).

There is a defence to providing the information late if you can persuade the court that it was not reasonably practicable to provide the information any sooner (or at all). There is also a defence of not knowing who was driving and not being able to determine who it was with reasonable diligence.

Whilst I am not aware of any case law on the narrow point, I would strongly suggest that the reasonable practicability includes exercising reasonable diligence, so as SP has mentioned, it seems to all boil down to the question of whether asking your Mum if she knew anything substantially before she let slip that it was your Dad would have exceeded "reasonable diligence". I would further suggest that whilst SP is technically absolutely correct, absent the most contrived of circumstances that is not a question that most benches would struggle to answer immediately.

As has been said, the speeding charge has no legs.

So you never responded to the s 172 notice?

I'm a bit baffled by this. In the first post "I" received a s172 letter. 'We" replied. Is "I" the registered keeper or is "we"one of the family, the registered keeper? Your father maybe? that is what you seem to hint at further down the page. I don't see how the OP can be charged with failure to furnish information if his father is the registered keeper. "We" should not be answering the letters, it is the job of the registered keeper.

Also, the mother who apparently wasn't in the car at the time of the speeding, remembers the father using the car at that time.Hmmm...

Hi All,

Just to add to the replies, i am the registered keeper, not my dad.

He was just responding on my behalf, i know it’s my responsibility to respond, but he said he knew what he was doing so i left it to him, the letters even have his name on.

I do want to avoid throwing my dad under the bus for perverting the course of justice even though that is what he did.

But considering i wasn’t the one driving, i can’t really make a plea for the section 172 offence and i don’t have a defence for that?

We did respond to it, well not me. But my Dad did, with letters signed for by him. And we did actually check bank statements/texts etc. The only thing we didn’t do is ask my mother, but at the time i believe we had no reason to since she wasn’t one of the 3 drivers on the policy and she doesn’t even have a license so didn’t even give it a thought, which i know in hindsight i should have, but it’s too late for that. The letters were addressed to me, but it’s my dad who responded to them, not me.

I guess the whole conviction would revolve around as to if they think not asking my mother in regards to the whole incident is not having due diligence?

But considering i wasn’t the one driving, i can’t really make a plea deal for the section 172 offence and i don’t have a defence for that?

That's correct. (Deal inserted as that's the only way your question makes sense)

Referencing a previous comment, your Dad has thrown you under the bus here.  Not only could you have named the driver using reasonable diligence, but you appear to have exercised the bare minimum of diligence (and far below reasonable IMO based on what you have told us) and even left it to one of the possible drivers to reply on your behalf.

he said he knew what he was doing

Hopefully he didn't as that would make the situation you are now in much worse (deliberate act as opposed to a reckless one) in terms of it's impact on you.

Thanks for your replies here, just to clarify - we checked bank statements, text messages, work emails to try and figure out who the driver was at the time.

At that current time, we had no reason to ask my Mother as she doesn’t even have a license so wasn’t anything to do with the 3 of us in that situation.

Bank transactions shown nothing on that day as cash must have been used, and no text messages took place between the time of offence. My mother remembers after we asked her after the 28 days, due to the fact she remembered him going to get food at that time, due to it being in the fridge after a month and she remembered, seems very coincidentally i know but that’s the honest truth. Just to add, i did send the police emails around 2 months ago when i received the Single justice procedure stating my dad was the driver, but they did say it was in the courts hands to deal with now.

I understand he’s thrown me under the bus here, and i can’t really say he’s done that as he will get done for much worse. But i was hoping there would be an option where i can nominate him as the driver in court and get him to plead guilty for speeding for that charge, and they drop the Failure to ID charge. Is this a possibility potentially? They have definitely issued the charge for speeding, so i don’t believe it is timed out. Is it a possibility they will just take the prosecution for speeding on him and drop the failure to ID?