Safe Speed Forums

From my point of view I apply the law, if that means someone is found not guilty, even though they did speed, then I accept that verdict and move on. Surely you would not want me to apply the law according to my personal feelings as to whether someone "deserved" to be convicted?

I fear you have more faith in the administrative workings of the CPS than I do.

How do I tell the difference between a legitimate delay, and administrative error and a deliberate withholding?

There is no reason for the CPS to withhold any evidence.

My view has always been that holding a particular office should not bring with it "standing in society". That should come from respect for the individual who, in my view at least, must earn it by his or her own actions.

As far as "common non-compliance" goes, all the people you list above are subject to the law in the same way as everybody else.
As a JP I am well aware that, if stopped by a police officer for a road traffic offence I am VERY unlikely to get a warning. The officer would, quite properly, take the view that a warning would give rise to "one law for us and another law for them" comments. If I am convicted of any offence then the county advisory committee would consider the offence and make a recommendation to the Lord Chancellor about whether or not I should be allowed to continue as a JP.

I post here my views as a JP. They are my view of the system and may not be shared by others who have duties within the system. I think they are of value, if for no other reason than the scarcity of other posters from within the system.
As I have said many times I am careful not to post personal views of speed enforcement as they are of no more or less value than those of any other driver. Judging by the number of replies people do value the chance to have a go at people like me.

My figures came from the
Social Attitudes to Road Traffic Risk in Europe Study
for no better reason than I was sent a copy by a dutch friend who was one of the researchers.

Thats the case as I understand it.
The point being that rich people speed as much as they want and poor people can be in real financial difficulty as the enforcement is much more strict than the UK. I am told that the system is a much more efficient revenue earner than the UK one, which begs the question - if UK speed cameras are all about raising money why don't the government make themselves popular AND raise more money by adopting the dutch system?

Indeed. Your presence is very welcome and your (professional?) views are extremely helpful.

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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

There are clearly financial motivations within the speed camera programme, but you won't find many here suggesting that government 'profit' is a driving force. We focus instead on empire building in camera partnerships and profit motives in commercial organisations.

In fact I believe that there was a major profit motivated 'distortion' right at the very beginning, when camera manufacturers persuaded politicians and senior civil servants that they would fulfil their road safety duties by buying the 'magic accident reducing machines' on offer. The government are the mugs who were sold a pup...

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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

Fisherman,



As you are posting as a JP, I am very interested in this comment. Is it really right that you cannot refuse to hear a case where you have a personal, moral or other objection which might lead to your impartial judgement being compromised?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Most of the replies seem not to be having a go at people like you but rather 'the system'.

It does not seem like justice when most ordinary motorists have no means of proving their speed other than the evidence from a speed camera - if they can get hold of it. Drivers of lorries, coaches etc. at least have a tacho to back up their story, but what chance do the rest of us stand?

The video and photgraphic evidence should be available as soon a possible after a request - not the day before a court appearance as often occurs according to reports.

From your professional point of view, what could be done to improve 'the system'?

That's my whole point. The real offence (in the spirit of the law) is creating a disturbance, not exceeding the limit. If I was a teenager who lied about his age in order to buy booze, and was subsequently caught, I'd fully expect to be charged with something along the lines of underage drinking - and not with shoplifting (for example).
Speed limits should not be imposed for reasons other than safety. If there are other reasons then more effective measures should be employed. If this cannot be done then drivers should be fully informed as to why the speed limit exists. To do otherwise is morally wrong.
Few drivers would object to signs informing them of the need to keep the noise down - they'd probably respond by selecting a higher gear, not accelerating, or even slowing down. But telling them that they must do what is apparently a stupidly low speed will more than likely do nothing more than get their backs up.




Pressure from voters who have been fed misinformation for years. That could also be regarded as sufficient reason to bring back hanging - for arguments sake.
Councillors have to be seen to be doing something in order to justify their existence. What that something is is whatever they can get away with.



Indeed.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

All JPs and judges take the judicial oath.

"I, ..........................................................., swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second, in the office of Justice of the Peace and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of the Realm without fear or favour, affection or ill will."

So I have a choice. Either I uphold the law, all of it, as it is written OR I resign from the bench.

Thus far, I am sure that I have been able to do that. If the day ever comes when I am not sure, I will resign.
We lost a few JPs when the new anti hunt laws came in because they could not be SURE they could be impartial.

Although this site concentrates on motoring law, motoring offences are only part of the case load in magistrates courts. For example I have had a significant amount of extra training to make me more proficient at dealing with domestic violence cases. helping the victims of domestic violence is very rewarding and far outweighs, for me at least, the need to put personal feelings aside when dealing with motoring cases.
During training I doubted whether I should have been appointed as I really did not think I could always be impartial. However thanks to first class training and guidance from senior colleagues I decided to stick with it,although 1 fellow trainee did not. When I first started to sit in court I stuck to the structured decision making process that we are taught and it all came together.



There are instances when JPs refuse to hear a case, but they are where it might appear to an outsider that they could be biased.
For example a teacher JP would probably not hear a "fail to ensure your child attends school" case.
A colleague of mine, who is a retail security manager, won't hear any cases involving shoplifting. This is because he could be said to have a vested interest in a guilty verdict and in the highest possible sentence. Personally I would have no qualms about him hearing a shop lifting case, but outsiders might not see it the same way.

keep pressing for information.
If defending yourself in court ask the clerk
When was i supposed to get the video?
As I didn't get it in time what are my options?

Ask the CPS
Why was the video late
Why have they not dropped the case because of failure to comply with evidence rules.

If your case is dropped after a late delivery of evidence write to the chief prosecutor of your local CPS and ask why his staff are so inefficient with copy to your MP.

Be prepared to accept that your interpretation of the law may be wrong, especially if you got it from somewhere that offers legal advice from people who have no training of any kind. I have seen far too many people talk their way into a higher penalty by insisting that their mate from the pub says he is right and the court is wrong.

I can see your argument but the fact remains that there are any number of reasons allowed in law for imposing a speed limit but only one offence that is prosecutable if the limit is broken.

Again I can see what you mean but that is not the way things are.

I question whether someone who loses his temper because he disagrees with a speed limit should be allowed behind the wheel of a car at all.

Thats democracy, it aint perfect but its the best we have discovered so far.
Perhaps you should stand for your local council and show them how it should be done.

Useful information, thanks. I pleased to say I have not been caught speeding yet, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time due to the sneaky methods employed by the partnerships.

Fisherman,

Thank you for your reply. It is clear to me now that I would not be able to become a magistrate given the restrictions imposed.

One point occurs to me. Following your "refuse to hear a case if an outsider might think there was a risk of bias" comment (sorry about the paraphrasing), would a road safety engineer who was also a magistrate refuse to hear a speeding case? I would consider they might be biased.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Well, in my opinion, those any number of reasons should not be allowed in law - except in a few cases where no practical alternative exists.



I don't believe that that's what I meant.
For a great many people, what they see as unjustifiable speed limits might, at the very least, reduce their respect for speed limits in general - perhaps even reduce their respect for the law as a whole. And that cannot be a good thing.



Unfortunately, I don't have the necessary 'qualities'

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

In theory I would go along with that advice, but for my personal experience.

I was accused of speeding, solely on the evidence from a prescribed device, yet I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt in my own mind that I had not committed the offence. (I won't go into further details about that now, but can do later if you want to know more).

I entered a NG plea, intending to examine the evidence against me when it was disclosed, and even if that failed to turn anything up simply to stand before the Magistrate and tell the truth, on the grounds that to plead guilty when you know you are innocent is dishonest. Naive I know, but that's just my own personal code of ethics.

Anyway, it was pointed out to me that to do so was completely futile, as in the eyes of a court any evidence from a Type Approved device is regarded as proven beyond reasonable doubt, end of story. My only chance of "justice" would be to run some form of technical defence, should the opportunity present itself.

So I sat back and awaited the disclosure of evidence. Despite having nearly six months to prepare the Crown chose to disclose the evidence to me just 4 days prior to the hearing, and two of those days were weekend. So when I went to court I objected to the evidence, on the grounds that the strict terms of section 20 of the RTOA 1988 had not been complied with (it stipulates 7 days with no leeway or "slip" allowed).

The Clerk of the Court considered this carefully, looked at the statute, at Wilkinsons, and adjourned for a few minutes to advise the Magistrates. When they returned they agreed that the evidence was inadmissible, and after a few more valiant efforts by the prosecutor to have his witness "adopt" the printout as his own and give the evidence orally, they found there was no case to answer and dismissed.

The Crown's response was to appeal to the High Court, on the grounds that this ruling was incorrect - the 7 days was optional, and in any case their witness should have been allowed to present the evidence as if it were his own direct testimony, even though he wasn't present at the time of the alleged offence, his job merely being to load and unload the machine.

So after after a further 9 months we all troop down to the RCJ in London. During this time we had done masses and masses of research, and prepared, submitted (and disclosed) all our lines of argument and legal references.

However, on the day the judges chose to play rather a clever trick, taking advantage of the fact that they themselves have no need to disclose anything, and "bounced" everyone present with some case law neither side had ever heard of, and a completely new line of argument. This was that there's no need to comply with s20.8 at all, the Crown can simply adduce the printout under common law as a document in its own right. We pointed out that even so it would still need to be disclosed, quoting Edwards v UK, but it was decreed that this was irrelevant. The original court had said it was inadmissible because s20 hadn't been complied with when (it appears) they should actually have said that it was because it wasn't properly disclosed.

Having digested this for a day or two I quickly realised we'd "been had". The reason the original judgment only mentioned s20 was because that was the only way the Crown had sought to adduce the evidence. They never tried to adduce it as a document in its own right under common law, so it would have been wrong for the court to have mentioned this point of law in their stated case.

The bottom line is that instead of ruling on the points raised in the case, their lordships chose to rule on a completely hypothetical point of law, and were careful to keep this line of argument completely secret from any other party so that they could railroad it through on the day.

There were also some pretty scathing remarks made about us for "deliberately" choosing to cheat the court by not raising the non disclosure issue prior to the hearing.

So I am the one apparently guilty of springing the ambush, not the CPS for deliberately withholding the one critical piece of evidence until it was too late for me to do anything with it, and not the High Court for springing an ambush of its own,

So now the case is remitted back to court, and one PTR later (and nearly 2 years from the alleged offence) it appears we're going back to trial all over again, with the Crown being granted the opportunity to correct all the errors in their case preparation.


If someone demonstrates to me that my interpretation is wrong I will be happy to accept it. No-one has done so yet. All that has happened is that a High Court has effectively wiped out a piece of statute by setting case law which completely circumvents the clear will of Parliament, ie that the defendant shall have 7 days to examine any of the so called cast iron evidence against him. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so...

I don't feel there's much point in writing to my MP. The cynic in me tells me after this experience that even if Parliament changed the law, the CPS and the Courts will gang up to get their own way. Can't have Joe Public "getting off" speeding allegations simply because we haven't bothered to follow our own rules!

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

All that is required is to try the case on the evidence in accordance with the law, having left any personal prejudice in the car park.
The training is VERY comprehensive on those points.
Have a go.

Not something I had ever thought of, but as a first thought I can't really see a problem except, perhaps, where someone mounts a defence based on incorrect signage. In such a case there would be a risk of the JP knowing more about the subject than any witness that might be called.

I can't quite work out if that is good or bad

JT
it sounds as if you feel you had a fair hearing from the magistrates court.

I am not able to comment on the high court decision because that is way above any experience or training I have had.

JT

Your have all my sympathy, since the reality would seem to be that the police and prosecution will do anything to manipulate the system to their advantage.

So much for the argument by “fisherman” that one only has to show reasonable doubt.

If you can’t get the evidence needed in time to prepare the defence case for the trial, then how is it possible to show reasonable doubt. Perhaps “fisherman” would care to explain.

As I understood the post by JT he was found not guilty in the magistrates court in spite of the massed forces of the police and CPS.

As I have also said I lack the training and experience to comment on the workings of the high court.

it might be worth JT contacting one of the universities with a law school. on occasion they can make use of legal cases like this one for training law students. Some of the bigger towns have community law centres with similar access.
JT you could try these
http://www.probonogroup.org.uk/spbg/protocol.htm
http://www.barprobono.org.uk/navigate/home.html