Conditional offer of fixed penalty Options

[jannerbee]

Dear all,

New to the forum so apologies if I miss something & I am not fully aware of the legal obligations.

On the 16th April I was pulled over for use of a mobile phone, a text message was sent at the traffic lights and I was pulled over and escorted into the police van.

The officer manually wrote a traffic offence report with all correct details on including address and phone number. He stated is should receive a notification from the police within 28 days but usually within 14 days.

A month passed and I heard nothing, worried about this being processed (as they could claim it was posted) I rang the 101 line as detailed on the back of the report. The officer I spoke to said there was no record of any impending action to be taken against myself or my vehicle and implied I may have "gotten away with it". She then gave me a further number (01274 dont have exact number) to ring and ask, it was traffic incident number or something similar. Stupidly (or more because I was worried) I rang them & gave them the officers details from the day so she could contact him, whilst this was naive, I was anxious as to this case going against me as the police can always state that something was posted and this is accepted.

Within a further week (dated 18/5/2018) I received a Conditional offer of fixed penalty detailing the offence of 16/4.

the offer states I either accept 6 points and a £200 fine or can contest the allegation in court.

So my question is, should this have been received within a smaller time frame (14 days as per gov website) and if so, how do I go about defending this?

Or am I just guilty as charged, accept the fine and deal with the consequences.

Whilst I am aggrieved with the fine, as I do not believe mobile phone usage should all be dealt with in the same manner (for example is sending a text in a stainer vehicle the same as using a mobile whilst doing 70mph can a motorway?)

your help and advice is greatly appreciated

JB

This post has been edited by southpaw82: Tue, 5 Jun 2018 - 14:52