SafeSpeed wrote:
There's a regular here who has had an apparently similar - and far less than happy - experience with SPECS. I'll alert him to this thread.
Yep, I was that soldier!
I challenged the allegation made against me, of doing 47mph in a 40 on roadworks on the M6. I was absolutely certain of my innocence as I had a very clear recollection of the event in question and had used the average speed function on my car's onboard computer to ensure I had maintained exactly 40, and had no reason to doubt the accuracy of this measurement.
So I
knew in my heart of hearts that the allegation was wrong, and decided to go to court and fight it, on the assumption that when all the evidence came out something would prove my innocence.
What actually happened was that the CPS never disclosed the evidence in advance of the case, as the law says they must do, or at least not until a day or so before the case, when the law stipulates 7 days. This took us off on a bit of a tangent in that it gave us a clear technical defence to have the case thrown out, so this is what we did. I went to court and insisted that the evidence was declared inadmissible due to the lack of prior disclosure, and after some argument the court accepted this. Without the evidence there was therefore no case to answer and I was acquitted.
What then happened was that the CPS appealed against the acquittal, saying that the evidence should have been admitted anyway, regardless of the lack of prior disclosure. Now this was clearly nonsense, as the law states in black and white that disclosure IS necessary; but we had to go through all the incredibly long-winded process of a high court appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, some 9 months later.
What happened then was that the Law Lords examined the case as stated by the original court and found an ambiguity in the way it had been written up. Without going into too much detail what they basically decided was that the original court, whilst right to have thrown the case out, had actually thrown the case out for the wrong reason. In truth this wasn't actually the case, rather that the clerk had written it up badly afterwards and left them this opening, but either way it then became open to the high court to uphold the appeal, which they then did, referring the case back to the original court for a complete re-trial.
So six months later we went back to the original court with a new judge, and of course by this time there is no question of non-disclosure, as way more than 7 days has now elapsed. Thus I was found guilty and fined £100 with £400 costs and 3 points on my licence.
Perhaps the most interesting point about all of this is that the standard of evidence from a SPECS device is absolutely rubbish. Basically it consists of one page of computer printout which you could mock-up in a couple of minutes in MS Word or photo shop if you wanted to. This contains a fuzzy picture of a car with an illegible number plate, plus two close ups of a number plate bearing your registration (that could have been taken anywhere, or even computer generated for what it matters) and a printout of the alleged speed. As someone used to working in engineering the standard of this document and the lack of any proper audit trail or proof of calibration is absolutely appalling. But a court accepts that as proof beyond reasonable doubt, and there is no realistic way you can challenge it as there is nothing to challenge.
In effect, it's like the court is handed a piece of paper with a speed typed in the middle of it, and accepts it as irrefutable proof. How can you possibly challenge it?
The second point is that SPECS has no independent means of corroborating its evidence. I believe that this is actually unlawful, but I can't see how on earth you could ever get this before a court who would rule in our favour as too much is riding on it for them. If you were to satisfy a court on this point then every speeding conviction ever made by SPECS would have to be quashed, which simply isn't going to happen. The manufacturers say that it does have a means of independent corroboration but they won't say what it is as it is a trade secret. Looking at the system as a whole it seems glaringly apparent to me that this cannot possibly be true, as the system only has a limited means of acquiring data, and any two means it has of calculating speed must work to the same principle, and indeed share some of the components, thus the "secondary check" is not independent of the first, either in principle or in operation.
In other words, if something were to cause the primary check to give a false reading, it is likely that the secondary check would share the same error instead of showing up the fault.
Anyway, to summarise, if your friend wants to see the evidence then they will have to plead not guilty and go to court. If they do so then they will - probably - get a copy of the evidence beforehand but it won't be very impressive and certainly won't give you any means of disputing its validity. The best hope is that somewhere down the line the CPS will cock things up and give you some technicality that you can exploit to get the case chucked out, which actually happens quite often. If they don't you can always change your plea, in which case you'll probably get a fine of £60-£100 and costs of about £40. If you continue to fight the fine won't change much but the costs will rise exponentially. They really don't like people pleading not guilty as it messes the system up. Courts are there to punish, not to provide justice.
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Been there- tried that; ‘no obligation’ they say. I politely asked their technical director Graeme Southwood, he wouldn’t budge.