Disqualified from driving because MS90 and totting up, TT99 OFFENCE DUE TO MS90 Options

[Boujeebus]

Hi everyone,

I need some advice. In June 2020 I received 2 speeding fines (36 in a 30 and 37 in a 30) in succession, one on monday and the next on wednesday on the same road (just my luck)! After a few days of moaning about this i acceted both charges and confirmed i was the driver on both occasions. I sent both forms in the same envelope and awaited the next instructions.
I then received a confirmation of points and a fine of 1 of the fines but not the other. I quierd this with the issuing body on the letter via email (luckily theres a clear paper trail) confirming i had sent back 2 letters but only received 1 back. After some back and forth the reprentative confirmed that unfortunatelty the second fine had gone to court and the issue was now outside of their remit* as the who driver when the offence occured was never confirmed. I was really frustrated as i did all i had do. I figured i would just letter which i assumed would summon me to court, i would attend and it should be easy enough to explain.

Some months had passed with nothing received.

Jan 2020 i receive a letter letting me know i had been disqualified from driving. i was distraught!!! I checked my license on the gov website and it outlined a MS90 for failure to provide driver information, and TT99 ban for totting up (please note did have 3 points prior to this incident and the 2 new charges brought me upto 9points). As the MS90 carries 6 points (and a £660 fine) this took me over the 12 point mark and which is what i assumed is what led to my disqualification.

I have a contacted a solicitor but the fees are extortionate i was wondering if anyone could advise on whether i have case, any tips and if this can be done without a solicitor?

Thank you !!

This post has been edited by Boujeebus: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 - 23:43

[Advertisement]

[Logician]

This can certainly be sorted out without a solicitor, provided you can act within 21 days of becoming aware of the court proceedings which led to your conviction and disqualification. You will need to contact a magistrates' court and arrange to make a statutory declaration to the effect that you were unaware of the proceedings. It may take a while to actually get an appointment but that is accepted.

Making the stat dec has the effect of putting matters back to how they stood before the court case. That will probably be that you are charged with a s.172 offence of failing to identify the driver and the speeding offence, and you will be asked to indicate a plea to both, indicate not guilty to both. This will result in a court date being set for a trial. Ask the court to confirm that collection proceedings for the fine and costs be halted and that the DVLA will be notified that the conviction has been quashed because of the stat dec and therefore the points and disqualification resulting no longer stand. Do not drive until the DVLA have confirmed that you are no longer disqualified.

Attend court on the date set. As there is no evidence as to who was driving your car, since you have not told them, there should be no conviction for the speeding unless you plead guilty. Get to court early and ask one of the ushers (people scurrying about with clipboards and possibly gowns getting things organised) to point out to you the prosecutor who will be dealing with traffic matters. Say to him/her that you will plead guilty to the speeding if they will drop the s.172. We have never heard of prosecutors refusing to do this, they prefer to get a conviction for the underlying offence, and regard the two offences as effectively alternative offences. If you do not manage to speak to the prosecutor beforehand, you should still be able to do the deal in the courtroom. It is very difficult to do this in advance of the court hearing as you would have trouble speaking to the right person.

If the police had processed your second reply you would have received the offer of a fixed penalty. The normal sentencing for speeding in court would be rather more severe than this, so you would have been disadvantaged. Therefore you should point this out to the court and request to be sentenced at the fixed penalty level, which is a guideline for magistrates' courts in these circumstances. The actual wording of the guideline is:

Where a penalty notice could not be offered or taken up for reasons unconnected with the offence itself, such as administrative difficulties outside the control of the offender, the starting point should be a fine equivalent to the amount of the penalty and no order of costs should be imposed. The offender should not be disadvantaged by the unavailability of the penalty notice in these circumstances.

This all sounds more complicated than it is in practice, very many people have gone through this process without difficulty and everybody will be expecting this to happen.

[The Rookie]

I presume you mean you received notification in Jan 2021, if it was a year ago you are well out of time to do anything about it now.

[Jlc]

As there is no evidence as to who was driving your car, since you have not told them, there should be no conviction for the speeding unless you plead guilty.

From what I can ascertain the OP returned both s172's in the same envelope and it appears only one was processed - so the Police may well have very good evidence as to who was driving... (In hindsight returning them separately may have avoided this)

So the s172 was complied with and should never have been prosecuted.

The 'plea bargain' route is probably the safest option and there's a good case for having a FP equivalent sentence but there are other options should the OP want to explore them.

This post has been edited by Jlc: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 - 10:24

[Irksome]

Do we know if the OP was dual charged or not? If not then there could be a valid defence to the charge?

[Jlc]

Do we know if the OP was dual charged or not? If not then there could be a valid defence to the charge?

Good point.

Although, it seems strange why the OP had not received any communication about the prosecution (SJPN?) but a Statutory Declaration is the only next move to see what was pursued. I wonder if they did have the correct address?

This post has been edited by Jlc: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 - 12:11