Safe Speed Forums

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,, ... 84,00.html

159mph Officer Cleared
Updated: 11:27, Friday March 16, 2007

A police officer caught speeding in an unmarked Vauxhall Vectra at speeds of up to 159mph has had his conviction for dangerous driving overturned by the High Court.

PC Mark Milton, 38, of Telford, Shropshire was found guilty following his second trial for the offence after the High Court overturned his original acquittal.

District Judge Peter Wallis, sitting at Ludlow Magistrates' Court, ruled that his expertise as a Grade One advanced police driver was "irrelevant" to whether or not his driving was dangerous.

But Lady Justice Smith and Mr Justice Gross, sitting at London's High Court, said the district judge had "misdirected himself".

They sent the case back to him to decide whether "PC Milton's unusual driving skills were such as to make a crucial difference to the dangerousness of his driving".

Lady Justice Smith said: "It seems to me that this matter is of considerable importance to both sides of the dispute."

PC Milton had been given an absolute discharge for the offence.

During the trial, footage taken from the camera video fitted to a West Mercia Police Vauxhall Vectra was shown.

Milton was seen to be regularly travelling over 100mph on A-roads and up to 159mph on the M54 during the early hours of December 5, 2003.

The armed response officer, claimed he was honing his skills following an advanced driving course.

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Surely he did not have to 'claim' the above as his practice session was fully sanctioned and recorded by his superior officer and therefore in the line of duty - or was it?

If not then he was breaking the law irrespective of his skills and the level of danger. The only other logical conclusion is that if you have provable skills then you can ignore the speed limits as per the title of the post.

Should we be demanding advanced testing to give us higher speed allowances? When the scamera NIP comes through the post simply fill in your license number and the fine is cancelled if your rating allows. An interesting reversal would be that they would probably want you to prove it was you driving the vehicle.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

It isn't done and dusted yet. It's been sent back to the magistrates. Again.

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 12:24:

PR457: Mark Milton ping pong - bad for justice

news: for immediate release

The BBC reports that the famous Mark Milton '159mph cop' case has once again
been returned to the magistrates court for re-hearing.

Paul Smith, founder of safespeed.org.uk said: "Every time this case comes up it
does serious damage to the police public relationship and serious damage to
police driver training and operations."

"It's bad for justice, bad for Mark Milton, bad for the police/public
relationship, bad for road safety and bad for police driving. The CPS must stop
this ridiculous game of court ping pong - it's hurting all of us."

"As for Mark Milton receiving a fair trial, clearly that has become impossible
due to media coverage."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shro ... 457871.stm

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

What law would he have been breaking? The law says that a police officer may exceed the speed limit if it is necessary for police purposes. It makes no mention of needing prior sanction by a senior officer. That may be in the force rule book, but it isn't the law.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Indeed - I think some people have missed the point that the conviction is for dangerous driving. Whether he was allowed an exemption from speed limits is irrelevant to this - it is simply to decide if his driving was dangerous.

I also don't see a problem in this - if most other people were caught doing 159mph I would expect it would also need to be proved that the driving was actually dangerous to be convicted of dangerous driving (which can result in up to 2 years imprisonment ) rather than an assumption that 159mph (or any arbitrary number) is automatically dangerous.
However most other people would not have the exemption from speed limits, so could still expect to be convicted (and banned etc.) on this basis.

Tell that to these guys:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 068731.stm



Note the speed is labelled as the danger, not the manner of driving.

Also note on the same page:-
Whereas in another story 21-YEAR-OLD CAUGHT DOING 150MPH IN HIS DAD'S PORSCHE AND JUDGE SAYS IT'S NOT DANGEROUS DRIVING it was decided "I have to rule whether speed alone can be the basis of a dangerous driving case. I reach the conclusion that it cannot."..

First of all apologies for not responding earlier, I have been a tad busy over the last week; I tried on Friday but the forum was down for maintenance I think.

Are police allowed to speed whenever they feel like doing so? I had always thought that there would have to be some accountability, though I stand to be corrected. Police officers responding to an emergency call and speeding do so as part of a logged series off events. If a police officer decides to get some practice at high speed driving on the road then authorisation makes this clearly for 'police purposes', without this the situation somewhat ambiguous. What I believe I failed to make clear was, that I intended reference to be to whether the speeding was for police purposes or not rather than authorisation being a requirement.

The breaking of the law would then be a speeding offence, if speed limits are set for safety reasons breaking the speed limit is not safe i.e. dangerous. If breaking the legal speed limits for police purposes is not unsafe then safe speed limits are dependent on the skill of the driver.

I noticed


The Vectra was presumably following PC Milton? It was also speeding? Not up to 159mph maybe however this would clearly be for police purposes and so not dangerous? My thoughts about the 'line of duty' were triggered by this and unfortunately my logic is only as good as this assumption. Sometimes the logic is so obvious to me I forget to fill in the blanks, I would definitely been one of those math teachers that students hate for writing "it is obvious that" on the board.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May