Further to my previous post, I suppose it might depend on whether the OP was notified that he'd been convicted in his absence when he received these two communications referred to in his opening post on the pepipoo thread:
"... In mid-January 2023 I received a letter back stating that I owed £100 and would get 3 points due to not responding in time... "
and
"... A few weeks later, in early Feb 2023 I received another letter stating that, having not paid my fine on time, I now owed £816!!... "
The OP hasn't clearly said what these two letters actually told him. Did they tell him he'd been convicted in his absence?
Hi mate - happy to clarify.
The letter in mid-Jan was referring to the 3rd offence (the only one I knew of at the time). It was basically just a reminder letter for my fine (already paid) and licence details (already sent). As I had already complied with the COFP and all post was delayed due to the strikes I wasn't initially concerned by these reminder letters (which were arriving around 10 days or so from their dating in any case). This letter had nothing to do with the convictions I was unaware of.
Then I got the "£816" letter. It did not specify any convictions, and given I was unaware of any other motor offences at that time, my assumption was that I was being fined for not having paid my £100/sent my DL details (even though I had). That's what then prompted me to reach out to the Avon & Somerset police who then put me in contact with the CTO. After a bit of back & forth with the CTO, they then said that having looked into my case, they'd come across other offences which it seemed I was unaware of, two of which had already been referred to court. This was the 28th Feb.
Unless @mooney11 made a right horlicks of telling the court what happened
Whilst I can't rule out this possibility, I don't think I did at all. Firstly I know all the dates of everything that occurred by rote. Not only have I documented it in writing on the PePiPo0 forum, but you can imagine how many times I've explained all of this to friends, family & so on!
Secondly, when I filled in the form for an SD referral (the one linked to in the sticky), I had to detail how/when I became aware of proceedings. So it was in writing and in the court's possession.
Lastly, as mentioned I had prepared a simple written summary of the circumstances, which I gave to the prosecutor who gave it to the LA. I don't know if the LA or the magistrates bothered to read it or give it any more attention than a brief skim. It was given back to me at the conclusion of proceedings.
All I can tell you is that everything I've written across both forums has been 100% truthful, and I believe I relayed that information to the court in both writing and verbally just fine. In court I was asked when I became aware ("28th Feb"), how I became aware ("via email exchange with the CTO regarding a separate matter"), when I contacted the magistrates ("17th March, by phone") and why I didn't call on the 28th Feb ("I was in India volunteering and had read that I had 21 days to contact the magistrates"). I was also asked some more bizarre questions as detailed a couple of posts ago.
All of which is academic at this point anyway. I won't be appealing the decision and I had no faith a just solution to my situation was going to be arrived at given they couldn't even recognise that I was unaware of the proceedings. I'm quite confident that I would have been disqualified again, even if that seems completely unfair.
I'm not a lawyer or a magistrate but like NewJudge I'm at a loss to understand why the court refused to accept your SD.
It was within 21 days but, after listening to your answers to the questions put to you by their legal advisor, the court obviously came to the conclusion that - contrary to what you were swearing to - that you had had prior knowledge of the s172 proceedings against you.
Having looked at your two threads on pepipoo and on here, I can only assume (as I posted previously) either that you got your presentation of the dates to the court wrong, or that the magistrates and their legal advisor simply did not grasp the actual sequence of events and dates that you put before them.
My understanding is that you
first became aware of the two s172 proceedings against you when you were told during a phone call on 28 Feb 2023 that you had been convicted in your absence and without your knowledge. That 'phone call - as I understand it - was initiated by you with no awareness of the s172 proceedings. You then made contact with Bath magistrates court on 17 March (within 21 days) to arrange to make a SD.
As I posted previously, I can only wonder whether the court was of the opinion that the two letters you had received in mid-January 2023 and in early February 2023 had already informed you of the two convictions, and you were therefore outside 21 days.
However, as I understand it the letter in January was
unconnected with the s172 convictions although the letter in February was (or might have been?) in connection with them, but that letter didn't actually tell you clearly what it was about. It simply said "you've been fined £800" but no explanation why - so even after receiving that letter you did not fully understand what it was related to. And that was why you phoned them on 28 February which is when you first realised what had happened. (Is that a fair summary? I can see why the court could have been confused...)
As I said I'm not a lawyer. I can only suggest you follow
@NewJudge's advice and write to the court asking them to reopen the hearing in the interests of justice under s142 of the Magistrate's Court Act.
The only other option would be to make a formal appeal through the court system, but both Andy foster and Southpaw are suggesting that that would be prohibitively expensive...
Sorry - can't be of more help.
And in any case, did you ever really resolve the question of whether it's still in your best interests to have the 172 convictions set aside in the first place. Could you still end up getting banned again?
(Personally it would seem daft to me that you could be banned again, but you've seen how the courts don't always do what you want them to do...)