Lamford
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 - 00:13
One other case I would like help with:
A friend received a NIP in January 2004, and, not knowing any differently at the time, accepted a COFP even though the NIP was dated more than 14 days after the alleged offence. He has now raised this with the Camera Office and they have declined to reopen the case. They inidicated that they were given an old owner by the DVLC, even though my friend has a vehicle registration document dated before the offence from the DVLC. The Act does not seem to make any allowance for problems with the police computer or DVLC computer, but how can he enforce the reopening of the case. The court where he paid the fine say that they only do the administration and they have no power to reopen the case.
Help would be appreciated. Sorry to open two new posts the same day!
andy_foster
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 - 01:06
There are 2 issues here - the late NIP, and appealing an accepted COFP.
S.2 RTOA 1988 provides that failure to serve an NIP with 14 days is not a bar to conviction if the police could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained the driver or RK's details in time to serve such a notice.
If the DVLA provided the police with out of date information, the 14 day rule would not apply. If however, the police relied on their own out of date information (e.g. an old dump of the DVLA database), then the exclusion under s.2 RTOA would not apply, and the 14 day rule would.
If the RK received the V5C before the offence, then it would seem unlikely that the DVLA's info was out of date...
Regarding appealing an accepted COFP, I am not aware of any legal mechanism that would allow for this, other than a judicial review.
In cases such as Folly Bottom, the scale was sufficient to trigger The Big Red Refund Button, but as a one-off, I wouldn't hold out much hope.