Safe Speed Forums

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 826722.ece

Speeding drivers with loophole lawyers to face police challenge

Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

Drivers who challenge speed camera fines will face a new team of expert witnesses dedicated to the task of rebutting spurious arguments put forward by so-called loophole lawyers.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has created the team, called Road Safety Support, to help forces struggling to cope with the rising number of drivers contesting tickets by citing legal technicalities. Thousands of drivers have had tickets cancelled after arguing that police failed to comply with certain aspects of the law when enforcing speed limits.

Many have claimed that cameras have not been properly calibrated to record speed accurately. Others have argued that speed limit signs have been obscured or that mobile cameras have given false readings.

Police often fail to contest such cases and cancel the ticket, either because they lack the resources to prove in court that the claims are false or because they do not want to risk losing the case and establishing a precedent.

Meredydd Hughes, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire and Acpo’s head of roads policing, said: “We are going to demonstrate that spurious cases get a slap. This team will defend the integrity of enforcement equipment and help us win high-profile cases.

“We are saying to drivers who think they can try it on, ‘Come and get us if you think you are hard enough’. We have won every case we have supported.”

Mr Hughes said that the team, which includes Crown Prosecution Service solicitors on secondment, had scored its first major victory in a case in Hull in January.

Darren Fernie, a businessman from Lincoln, had contested a speeding ticket on the ground that a policeman had failed to operate a mobile camera properly.

But the court accepted evidence from one of Acpo’s expert witnesses and Mr Fernie had to pay £9,400 in prosecution costs and a £200 fine. He was given three penalty points.

Mr Hughes said: “I respect competent lawyers who go through the evidence on behalf of their client. My job is to make sure the prosecution case is as robust as the defence.”

He criticised anticamera groups such as Safe Speed and the Association of British Drivers, which encourage drivers to challenge speeding tickets.

“What these groups have done is encourage people to believe that there is something inherently wrong with enforcing the law.”

Paul Smith, founder of Safe Speed, said that Acpo’s team would increase the pressure on drivers to accept penalties.

“The speed enforcement system relies on bluff and bluster and threatening drivers with the risk of having to pay prosecution costs is part of the bluff.”

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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

Something else that costs money, of course...

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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

ACPO are being pretty dodgy aren't they?

Safe Speed bit back with the following PR issued at 02:20 this morning:

PR487: Too many defective speeding prosecutions - so ACPO bluff harder

news: for immediate release

According to the Times today, The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
will send a crack defence team to prosecute drivers who dare to challenge their
speeding fine.

Safe Speed says that ACPO is merely upping their bluff. The biggest bluff of
all is that the resources do not exist to prosecute every speeding case. If
drivers stopped accepting fixed penalties the system would collapse in weeks.
This is the real reason for the ever increasing 'bluff and bluster' tactics -
they need to force us into paying fixed penalties because neither the courts
nor the CPS can possibly cope with much of an increase in cases.

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "This action by ACPO is a dirty
trick - they are attempting to put access to justice beyond the pocket of
ordinary drivers. They are effectively saying - 'you are guilty because we
never make mistakes'. But the newspapers are full of Police mistakes, and, to
make matters worse, one of the key pieces of police prosecution equipment is
downright dodgy. So dodgy, in fact, that it has been christened the
'dodgyscope' by Internet users."

According to The Times {verbatim quote}:

{Mr Hughes said: "I respect competent lawyers who go through the evidence on
behalf of their client. My job is to make sure the prosecution case is as
robust as the defence."

He criticised anticamera groups such as Safe Speed and the Association of
British Drivers, which encourage drivers to challenge speeding tickets.

"What these groups have done is encourage people to believe that there is
something inherently wrong with enforcing the law."}

Paul Smith replied: "What is wrong, Mr Hughes, is the overzealous application
of a law that simply isn't up to the job. You are damaging confidence in the
justice system, the Police / public relationship and road safety itself. You
can't even comply with the speed limit yourself, because you recently had 6
driving licence points for speeding."

"We encourage drivers to investigate the case against them. I would go as far
as to say that MOST speeding cases are DEFECTIVE on the prosecution side. If
you dig deep enough a fatal defect is quite likely to emerge. If you know you
were not speeding according to law, or you do not know who the driver was at
the time of the alleged offence then you are likely to have a winnable case."

"The whole thing has become a petty war of technicalities with ACPO and the
Police throwing ever increasing resources against an increasingly untrusting
public. In this ridiculous war road safety has been forgotten. Mr Hughes may
well claim that the law is on his side but however much he may bleat about the
law the fact is that millions upon millions of speeding prosecutions are not
saving lives on the road. It isn't 'the law' that matters most here, Mr Hughes,
it's the number of roads fatalities. You should know better."


Motorist's Prosecution Checklist:

* The speed limit must be correctly signed in accordance with the regulations
(Folly Bottom, Wylye, North Wales, Cleveland, Starcross and others)
* A speed limit order must apply correctly to the location in question.
(Lincolnshire, London, North Wales and others)
* The paperwork must be correct and in accordance with all laws and
regulations. (Dorset, Cleveland)
* The paperwork must be delivered on time
* The Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) cannot be served by second class
post. (South Wales)
* Papers to issue a summons must be laid within 6 months of the date of alleged
offence.
* The equipment must be calibrated correctly.
* The operator must use the equipment in accordance with rules and guidelines.
* The operator must form a prior opinion of speed in excess of a speed limit.
* Arguably only a Police constable is qualified to form a prior opinion of
speed in excess of a posted speed limit.
* Communications equipment must be switched off while measurements of speed are
taken (including the operator's mobile phone).
* The site must be suitable (restrictions include near power lines)
* The equipment must be working properly.
* Evidence must be disclosed to the defence 7 days before the trial on request
or it becomes inadmissible.
* If you don't know who the driver was at the time of the alleged offence you
may well have a statutory defence in RTOA1988 S172(4) as amended
* The court must be impartial (And since the Magistrate's Court Service are
usually a camera partnership member it is far from clear that the court has
the required degree of impartiality.)
* The process must not breach your Human Rights (A 'right to silence' case is
ongoing awaiting verdict at the ECHR at Strasbourg.)
* In the case of Gatso fixed speed cameras the transit of the calibration marks
in the two photographs must match the speed recorded by the radar speed meter.
* The prosecution must turn up in court with the correct paperwork.
* Witness statements cannot be signed by machine. (North Wales)
* The LTI20.20 (common laser speed meter used in virtually all mobile speed
camera vans) is subject to various operating anomalies, notably 'slip effect'.

A failure in any of these areas will usually be fatal to a prosecution case.

<ends>

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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

I reckon that checklist stands a chance of being published, nice one!

"Stand up for yourself and we'll clobber you!"

Sounds like a playground bully's tactic to me!

And what their expensively assembled team of prosecution lawyers will find is ...

a lot of speeding prosecutions ARE defective.

They will examine lots of cases and only proceed to prosecute those they are sure of winning to get some headline cases to frighten the average joe.

As you say, bluff and bluster. Why don't they just get the process right in the first place if they don't want prosecutions to fail (or as they would see it, get through a loophole)?

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

True. Lawyers use points of law und precedence in UK law

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

When he might have been more correct to say "
"What these groups have done is encourage people to believe that there is
something inherently wrong with the way the law is being enforced"

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I'll second that... nice one, Paul, good work.

_________________
p.s. I am still absolutely floored by Paul's death. May 2008 be the greatest ever for SafeSpeed. His spirit lives on.

Just sent to the BBC:
There's a HUGE conflict of interest taking place right now between the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and a new company formed by one of ACPO's members. The new company called Road Safety Support Ltd has recently hit the headlines in assisting in a trial for speeding where an award of costs to the prosecution of over £9000 was made. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... itted=true
One director of RSSL is also a senior member of ACPO. He is Chief Inspector Meredydd Hughes
The two companies have an overlap of interests, both covering similar aims.
Also ACPO's Code of Ethics places monetary or financial gain for members or family as a direct departure from it's rules yet the new company is charging outside interests for services rendered and making payment of salaries and pensions to its members. The outside interests include govenrment departments such as the Home Office for testing devices and suppliers of devices for assistance on gaining Type Approval. This is in direct conflict with the stated aim of the Home Office procedure for gaining type approval where all submissions are made by the suppliers at no costs to the Home Office.
In the speeding case above at Hull Crown Court, there exists a definte conflict of interest in the attendance at trial of one of the RSSL members. Since he/the company has undoubtedly geined financially from this appearance it puts into doubt the integrity of the evidence it submitted. There is absolutely no inpartiality here.
RSSL's stated intention to "take on those loophole lawyers" with the phrase "if you think you are hard enough to take us on come and get us" are hardly likely to engender much sympathy from those who are exercising their rights as citizens to defend an allegation of speeding.
Quite apart from the sinister tone of this organisation when it is making monetary gain it has lost any semblance of integrity by accepting/asking for costs awards of this nature. It is merely a company driven by the cash input from interested parties and the courts so making any likelihood of an impartial service impossible to imagine.
Further, the RSSL articles of Association are in direct conflict with those of ACPO, importantly the ACPO Code of Ethics which demands total integrity and freedom from monetary gain to its members or their family. Since Chief Inspector Hughes is a senior member of ACPO and a founding director of RSSL there is a huge conmflict of interest, not only in his duties at ACPO but with regard to his position as a serving policeman who derives his income from the public purse. I wonder at the implications of a serving member of the police using knowledge from within the police records to assist him in his new role of director of the RSSL setup.
Quite how ACPO see this organisation which is claimed to be affiliated to ACPO to be within the remit of its Code of Ethics is beyond me. Chief Constable Hughes is playing more tunes on a single fiddle than you could possibly imagine.
The implications are frightening to say the least.
What is even more horrific is that there appears to be members of the CPS seconded to this company. By who's authority? We the taxpayer pay the CPS. Who has authorised secondment of these people to a separate company which seeks to wreak vengenace on those who wish to defend a summons, and with the objective of putting cash into the comapny for payment of wages and pensions? I wonder if the Home Office has authorised this.
Here we have in Chief Inspector Hughes a public servant with a legitimate ACPO membership, one of the UK's most respected organisations, and he is now offering mirror services to ACPO for fee paying or income generating concerns. I wonder at his Contract of Employment with the Police. Is he allowed to a director or member of any other organisation whilst being paid from public funds? I would think not.
This is policing gone bad.
It is distasteful, and is worthy of an immediate investigation by the Home Office or other Government body.

We simply can't stand by and wach helplessly as the British Legal System becomes more corrupt than it is at present. I agree that there must be "equality of arms" between defence and prosecutioin but his is calling in the armoured division agains a troop of bloody infantrymen. My own case is being attended by a member of this hit squad and to be honest it frightens the Sh** out of me when I think of the £9000 costs award in Hull. Is this Justice? I think not. It will put off many an innocent victim of faulty technology or less than scrupulous adherance to the operating procedures from challenging a COFP.
I'm too far advanced to rethink my own case now, though I could still take it on the chin despite my knowledge that I wasn't committing an offence but to be honest I want my day in court. I want the opportunity to defend myself and the petty allegation. 35 in a 30 and they bring in the big guns. Justice!!!!!!!!

Lynnzer, your link was not to the article you mentioned. I think you needed the link;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 826722.ece

What I heard of the Hull Crown Court case was that the judge instructed the police to allow Dr Clark unfettered access to the LTI 20-20 for testing, which it seems conclusively showed that the LTI 20-20 was prone to error.

But it seems that judge then mysteriously found papers on his desk which revealed restricted information about the defendant. As a result the judge then had to disqualify himself from the case.

It seems the new judge then refused to consider Dr Clark’s evidence, which had been ordered by the previous judge, and then in the absence of that evidence the appeal was dismissed.

It seems the judge refused to talk about costs and walked out of the trial, with costs being awarded by the clerk, not the Judge. Apparently it was more like a TV drama than a real court hearing.

It is my understanding that the case is being taken to the High Court.

Sounds like a real stitch up by the legal system to me.
I have no problem with anyone getting a shake up in court if that's what's deserved but the whole system is so bent that right from the word go when we are required to give self incriminating evidence under threat of penalty we don't have a chance.
Whenever we make a good challenge we find all sorts of hurdles put in front of us. I have been shouting for disclosure of the Conditions Of Approval for the Gatso 24 for over 7 months now. I know they do not include the use of the Gatso from within a vehicle but lo and behold Trevor Hall is being called to prove otherwise. If there is an otherwise, then they should disclose and get it done with. I would change my plea at this evidence coming to light even though I know I was not speeding. There are just some things that you can't overcome though.
In the meantime I'm now crapping myself at the thought of the system screwing me for several thousand pounds costs on the basis of evidence from someone who is making a living from giving his opinion in court.