Free Traffic Legal Advice

If the Police assertion is true your friend could well be looking at a 12 month stretch.  Hundreds of people have been sent to jail for trying such a 'wizard wheeze', it's really not a good idea.

HOWEVER, the Police have increasingly given people the opportunity to reconsider, and no they don't then take further action, but continue with naming the same person and it makes them more likely to continue with a more serious charge.  Of course it may be a genuine nomination but the tone of your post suggests not.

Maybe i'm too risk averse, but it saves nonsense like this.

I think being against lying to the police can be filed under "sensible" rather than "too risk averse" on your part. It's not worth risking a prison sentence to dodge a minor speeding charge.

Any other advice you would give?

Those with more legal expertise may be able to offer insight into any procedural matters, but any advice as to what he should do is likely to essentially be: "Don't lie". If he has already lied about who was driving, he cannot undo that, but he can start telling the truth now, and hope that he hasn't made things too bad for himself. If they're providing the opportunity to name the correct driver, doing so would seem sensible.

FWIW if you had been able to access pepipoo, you would have found a thread (running to probably 12+ pages) of examples of people turning very minor speeding offences into prison time.

Here's a couple:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/11/chris-huhne-vicky-pryce

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47040912

Your friend really has no choice but to name himself (assuming he was driving) and hope the police have better things to do. If he does nothing they will certainly prosecute him for failing to provide the driver's details and may go for attempting to pervert the course of justice. I think he has been very lucky that they have not gone straight for the latter.

Strange that we've seen two posts originating today where "Wizard Wheezes" (aka utter stupidity) have been employed.

I'd suggest the latter. The least said the better.

I agree. To expect the police to believe it was a "mistake" is expecting too much! 

Thank you. He was the driver - will tell him to fill in the correct details and hope for the best. Can only give the advice and hope he takes it!
I'll update here if he shares the outcome with me. 

An example of a failed wizard wheeze, note that the judge said that if they had not pleaded guilty he would have sent them to jail:

£11,000 bill for couple who invented a Bulgarian to avoid speeding fine
By Nigel Bunyan
(Filed: 15/10/2005)

A chartered surveyor and his wife concocted an elaborate plan, complete with a fictitious Bulgarian motorist, in order to avoid paying two £60 speeding fines, a court heard yesterday.



Cathryn Bromley, 42, even flew to the former Soviet bloc country so that her alter ego, Konstantin Koscov, could send a postcard to her husband, Stuart.

The couple were caught out when a police officer became suspicious and managed to prove, courtesy of the British embassy in Sofia, that Mr Koscov existed only in their imagination.

The Bromleys decided on the scam after their blue Mercedes was twice caught speeding by a camera in Hyde, Greater Manchester, last January. Instead of paying the two £60 fines and accepting six points on his licence, Mr Bromley, 43, claimed that neither he nor his wife had been driving.

The guilty party, he maintained, was Mr Koscov, a former employee, who had since returned to his native Bulgaria.

Police believe that the Bromleys were convinced the matter would go away. However, they had not reckoned on the tenacity of Pc Mark Beales. When he began to investigate in more detail the couple decided that they needed more ''evidence''.

Mrs Bromley, who is also a surveyor, bought a ticket for a 1,400-mile return flight to Sofia where she wrote and posted Mr Koscov's postcard before catching the next flight back. She was at home in Broadbottom, Glossop, Derbys, when the postcard, featuring scenes from Bulgaria, landed on the doormat. It read: "Many thanks for the opportunity to work in your office. I enjoyed the experience and would gladly return the favour, unfortunately my car is nowhere as good as yours but it will get you about! 'Many thanks again and look forward to my next trip. Regards Konstantin Koscov."

Unfortunately for the Bromleys, they were a little too keen to present this new, seemingly incontrovertible piece of ''evidence'' to Pc Beales.

''We became suspicious because they were being too helpful in providing this postcard to corroborate their story,'' he said outside court. He also thought that Mr Koscov's vocabulary did not quite ring true and made the inquiries that would prove that the couple were lying.

Once the Bromleys knew they had been rumbled they confessed. Yesterday at Manchester Crown Court they were fined a total of £9,200 and ordered to pay £1,900 costs after admitting two counts of perverting the course of justice.

Passing sentence, Judge Bernard Lever said: "The best place to hit people like these is in their pockets. Had they not pleaded guilty, I would have almost certainly sent them to prison."

As a result of his court appearance Stuart Bromley is being investigated by his professional body, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. An RICS spokesman said he faced possible expulsion and a fine of up to £5,000.