Nip sent back but heard nothing for 6 months Options

[lord duckhunter]

Looking for a bit of advice.

Got caught on camera coming home from Gatwick doing 96 in a 70. Driving wife’s car so she got sent nip, which she sent back naming me. I received a nip and returned it, but have heard nothing since. I presumed I wasn’t eligible for a fixed penalty or speed awareness course, so was awaiting a summons. 6 months has passed since the original offence and I’m yet to hear anything. I can’t beliveve I’ve fallen through the cracks and got away with it, but I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything. My concern is that they didn’t receive my returned paperwork, or a summons has been issued but gone missing in post.

Should I just sit tight or should I actively try and find out what’s going in, in which case what do I do.


Initial offence 28/1 M3 Juntion 3-4 Camberley Surrey 96 mph
I received NIP as driver on 9/3 & sent it back within timescale.

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[southpaw82]

If you are more than six months from the offence they cannot now start proceedings so you have nothing to lose in calling them up and asking them. You may well find the paperwork is waiting to be sent out to you.

[notmeatloaf]

The only caveat is that there was a case on here a couple of weeks ago where the OP was told it was "policy" for Surrey to send the SJPs out after 10 months.

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=121354

There is arguably a defence there - the Single Justice Procedure legislation is a bit of a dogs dinner but a relevant paragraph is

Where a relevant prosecutor issues a written charge and a single justice procedure notice, the written charge and notice must be served on the person concerned, and a copy of both must be served on the designated officer specified in the notice.

Now in the days of summons if the information was laid with the court after six months the case was inadmissible. There was case law that as long as information was laid with the court in time, the summons would be served after six months. But that was in the days where issuing and serving were done by different organisations, and in any case summons were sent in about a fortnight.

If the other OP is right Surrey police are saying that it doesn't matter when they send you the SJP, as long as they upload the information into the system before six months. My opinion is that it is unlikely to fly if tested. Without specifically setting a time limit the legislation always refers to issue/serve as a continued process. If issuing it, leaving it on a computer for a few months, then serving it was acceptable then firstly the legislation should be clearer, and secondly it makes a mockery of the six month rule as police could issue SJPs after almost any length of time, disadvantaging the defendant.

I say the above because if you poke the hornet's nest they may just send out the SJP straight away, and the defence would be considerably weaker. Personally if you haven't changed address I would just leave things, with the small risk that you have missed letters and will need to do a statutory declaration to quash and reset the conviction.

You could belt and braces call the court and check if they have any cases scheduled for you.

Magistrates are normally unfavourable to technical defences, but they also tend to be very protective of court procedure and an argument that police were taking liberties when they got control of a court process may well be well received. But, there is not any case law in a court of record to date, so it would be impossible to be certain.

The other wildcard is sometimes the CPS like to bury these cases because local rag "Man shows all court cases inadmissible" doesn't go down well. So they may just duck the case even if they think they have a prospect of winning, as with Scottish unsigned cases, because losing would be hugely damaging (locally at least). It's like poker but where, potentially, the police are going to deal you a good hand.

[lord duckhunter]

Thanks for the replies.

If I’m reading it correctly and having read the link to the other Surrey case, I think I’ll just sit tight. Am I right in assuming that calling the magistrate court and them having no record of me ,only proves that a summons hasn’t been lost in the post rather than evidence that they’ve timed out. It was a bit complicated for me to understand but my reading is that Surrey police are claiming that provided they’ve started the process their end within 6 months that’s good enough, and nobody can prove one way or the other whether they did or not. The magistrates court will find out about the summons the same time as I do.

Is that the correct reading of it.

This post has been edited by lord duckhunter: Wed, 1 Aug 2018 - 03:52

[cp8759]

I've always been under the distinct impression that the police upload the SJPN into the court's system at the time when they issue it. Legislation aside, there is a compelling practical reason for this: like all court matters, SJPNs need to be booked into the court's diary system, if the police didn't upload it to the court computer and book it into the court diary, you'd end up with days when the magistrates have nothing to do, and days where one poor sod is expected to deal with hundreds of cases in one go, it would be chaos.

[lord duckhunter]

Received SJN yesterday. Says posted 3rd Aug but states it was started 24th July & Police statement is dated 24th July so I presume it’s all in order and hasn’t timed out by 4 days.

It’s now a question of keeping points and fine down to a minimum. Is there any advice around mitigation and income declaration. Is it better to appear in person or do so via the form. The form states you could receive a 33% discount by pleading guilty via the form. Is there any point in pointing out that it was 3am in the morning, hardly any cars on the roads or is it a waste of time to try and make excuses, and I’ve also had a clean licence for 5 years & only had the about 4 speeding tickets and 1 red light offense in 35 plus years. I’m concerned that there’s the possibility of a ban so is it worth pointing out ho much I need the car. Maybe the way to go is a fulsome apology, saying I've learned my lesson, i really don’t know how to play this


The other thing is the money, what’s the best way to minimise this. Is there any mitigation worth trying with this, or is it written in stone and a % of your income. I’m employed, so that’s pretty black and white.

Any advice would be appreciated

This post has been edited by lord duckhunter: Sun, 5 Aug 2018 - 04:29

[The Rookie]

Just plead guilty and send a SHORT letter of mitigation, there really isn’t much you can say and most of what you propose is meaningless. Better just to emphasise it’s out of character, moment of madness and learnt a harsh lesson.

It used to be suggested to attend in person, but with the new(ish) SJPN process it’s just seen as creating a bit of hassle if you really don’t have anything relevant to say.

[Jlc]

A ban would be unlikely. Guideline is 4-6 points so possibly 5 or 6.

Fine of 66% of weekly relevant earnings, costs of £85 and surcharge of 10% of the fine (min £30).

[The Rookie]

Just to add, if your weekly take home is less than the nominal £440 do make sure you complete the means form or you’ll be fined more than you should.

[lord duckhunter]

Just to add, if your weekly take home is less than the nominal £440 do make sure you complete the means form or you’ll be fined more than you should.

Thanks for advice.

What if it’s more, am I better off not filling it out?

My take home pay is pretty decent but I have a lot of historical debt. My wife went back to university to retrain as a midwife so my wage subsidised that & the bringing up of 4 kids. She’s been qualified for 3 years & only one kid is now under 18, but the credit cards/loans/re mortgage took a hammering. I can prove I have pretty heavy outgoings & not a great deal of spare cash, is it worth trying to get that taken into account , even if it’s just being allowed to pay in instalments

[The Rookie]

Not completing it would be an offence in itself (although rarely, if ever, actioned) no-one can suggest anything of the sort to you for obvious reasons, however it seems that where they are not submitted (in error mostly hence my reminder) the court just use the £440 and sentence based on that, so I dare say some people end up paying a lower fine due to that. If the court really want your earnings they will adjourn and require you to submit them, only then is any action likely to be taken for not submitting them.

Outgoings used to be used but now are not unless they are classed as exceptional, if you wanted to try that route you would have to emphasise the outgoings and why they should be treated exceptionally, it doesn't often come up on here so I have no idea of the success rate. Although you re-mortgaged it's still presumably a mortgage within the normal LTV criteria so not exceptional I'd suggest.

[Logician]

The guidance on expenses reads as follows:

Out of the ordinary expenses

In deciding the proportions of relevant weekly income that are the starting points and ranges for each fine band, account has been taken of reasonable living expenses. Accordingly, no further allowance should normally be made for these. In addition, no allowance should normally be made where the offender has dependants.

Outgoings will be relevant to the amount of the fine only where the expenditure is out of the ordinary and substantially reduces the ability to pay a financial penalty so that the requirement to pay a fine based on the standard approach would lead to undue hardship.



Such an application is unusual and I think would need to be supported by detailed information, a lot of people do take on heavy debt and of course it is intended as a punishment.