Free Traffic Legal Advice

As you failed to name the driver, the mobile phone offence currently has no legs. They have presumably no evidence as to who was driving, and without such evidence they cannot convict anyone of the offence.

The effective charge is failing to name the driver. There is a defence if you can persuade the court (on the balance of probabilities) that you do not know who was driving, and could not with reasonable diligence determine the driver's identity. Nothing that you have told us so far suggests that you would succeed with such a defence.

Where the underlying offence is considerably less serious (in terms of points, fine or nasty endorsement codes) than the s. 172 offence, and where the OP accepts that they were actually the driver, the stock advice is to plead not guilty to both charges, but indicate in the mitigation section that they would be prepared to plead guilty to the underlying offence (e.g. speeding) if the s. 172 was dropped. However, in this case, there's little to choose between a mobile phone conviction and an s. 172 conviction.

Thankyou

The road they said the offence occurred is a route we take every day often 4-6 times a day for pickups/ drop offs kids and work appointments, not the same person driving all of the journey, that is what made it difficult identifying the driver on this particular route.

What would be classed as enough due diligence to find out the driver at the time of the offence?
I don’t know how I’d prove who was driving at that point if I can’t see who was in the driving seat as we made 3 trips along that route within minutes. There was a lack of information provided in there was no location given on a 3 mile stretch of road made it also difficult to pinpoint.


I was so worried initially that me admitting to driving and them having video evidence which could have possibly showed it wasnt me would get me in trouble.
That’s why I asked for the video which they won’t give me.

You say "I requested the video as without them I couldn’t identify the driver, they sent still images taken from the video but because of the angle they were taken it was a partial hand and phone only visible"

They are likely to have sent you the best still images from the video, getting the actual video is unlikely to help as it will also be from the same angle, so you probably have all the available evidence, which also means that no one can prove you wrong if you say you were the driver. Some people have convinced the courts they could not possibly identify the driver but it is very much an uphill struggle and if you do not identify a driver you are very likely to be convicted of failing to identify. The police would rather have a speeding conviction than a failing to identify. As it seems you are as likely you were the driver as anyone else, this all points to you identifying yourself as the driver and offering to plead guilty to speeding if the other charge is dropped.

Have you spoken to all of the possible drivers and asked if they or you could check their phone logs for the date and time concerned?
Assuming that none of them have ancient phones or have deleted their call history and again, assuming that there was indeed someone using their phone, it may well be possible to identify the driver that way.

Ok so no phone calls were made or received within that timeframe as for data used the records show times of 00.31 9.31 or 15.31 then a repeat of 00.57 10.57 for a few days and then it changes to .58 etc etc obviously im not using my phone at those exact minutes every time so doesn’t prove or disprove usage. Other drivers are on the same network so data usage recorded on the bill in the same way just different repeated times.

Ok so my mistake and obvious mistrust in policing is that I felt they would try to catch me out by sending a picture that didn’t identify any driver but you are saying in fact would have been the best picture they had.
 I didn’t realise I’d be accused of failing to identify when I was actually trying to identify by asking to see the video.
I thought it would be a case of asking to see the video once the process had started and then being able to identify the driver and plead either way.

But we genuinely didn’t know who was driving at that point with the little they gave us. They didn’t even say where on a 3 mile stretch of road. I couldn’t even tell whether it was north or south bound journey.

How does the court process work? Do I submit witness statements? Do I provide all phone records?but if its only about the failure to identify these would no longer be relevant …. and I have very little to argue then other than what I thought I was doing was trying to carry on the process to be able to see the video to identify the driver…..  Do I get to speak to prosecution prior? Would they be open to discuss? I’ve totally not understood this procedure at all.

Re ‘As I said in an earlier post, there is a statutory defence to the FtP charge.

What is the statutory defence?

Re ‘However, you don’t seem to have done much at all in an effort to identify who was driving other than to ask the police for more evidence’

And how do you get to the conclusion that I have not done much at all to identify the driver?
Mobile data doesn’t prove one way or the other.
After trying to work out where we all were on that day and all movements, with the little information they had provided it was a last resort was to ask for images and video as they had not given any specifics of where on the road or which direction at this point.

And how do you get to the conclusion that I have not done much at all to identify the driver?

Probably because we don't have a magic window. You told us you have asked for the video. In a later response you said you had checked phone logs. You haven't mentioned what else you've done. How many potential other drivers are we talking here? Who is usually responsible for doing these multiple trips? How often are there multiple trips in the day that multiple drivers undertake randomly with seemingly no pattern to them?