Safe Speed Forums

Not at all fisherman. The problem lies with the belief by our elected government that every problem large or small can be solved by passing a new law. Most of these are dreamt up to show the voting public that " something is being done" and the increasingly politicised senior police have been encouraged to jump on this populist bandwagon. The laws are badly drafted and the legal protections againt abuse are simply not there; instead MPs utter meaningless re-assurances that are all too frequently broken by the authorities and supported by the lower judiciary. Much of the detail is not even subject to the scrutiny of parliament but enacted by Statutory instrument by some target driven civil service dept after the goverment has pushed through the enabling regulations.
Most of us have better and more constructive things to do than waste our time getting elected onto the ladder that reaches this corrupt club.
Some one said in our society theres 5% of the population trying toforce something through and theres 5% trying to oppose it. The other 90% don't care. don't understand the issues or have a touching faith that our rulers " know what they are doing"

I seem to find myself a lot in the second camp. And I'd say recently it seems to be getting much bigger than 5%. Which camp do you think you are are in fisherman and why ?

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Richard Ceen
We live in a time where emotions and feelings count far more than the truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science (James Lovelock 2005)

Exactly. And there are existing powers to deal with those who are suspected of giving false details of indentity. What the hell do we need yest another law for ? One could suspect Humberside Police Chief simply does not understand the existing powers available to him. Can you blame him when he already has thousands to deal with ? Much Much easier to ask foir a specific new power to deal with this weeks problem than leeok up the powers that he has.

Same as what I listened to Harriet Harman 4 weeks ago saying that a new blame and shame law on sex discrimination in the workplace was going to be brought in next session as the existing law New Labour brought in has not achieved the desired Utopia; If she cannot understand the diffence between law and effective enforcement how can we expect mere magistrates to ?????

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Richard Ceen
We live in a time where emotions and feelings count far more than the truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science (James Lovelock 2005)

[quote="Richard C
Same as what I listened to Harriet Harman 4 weeks ago saying that a new blame and shame law on sex discrimination in the workplace was going to be brought in next session as the existing law New Labour brought in has not achieved the desired Utopia; If she cannot understand the diffence between law and effective enforcement how can we expect mere magistrates to ?????[/quote


Now ,methinks that the Harmanites are taking things a bit too far - shades of Morceamb & Wises sketch 2

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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

[quote="Richard C
Same as what I listened to Harriet Harman 4 weeks ago saying that a new blame and shame law on sex discrimination in the workplace was going to be brought in next session as the existing law New Labour brought in has not achieved the desired Utopia; If she cannot understand the diffence between law and effective enforcement how can we expect mere magistrates to ?????[/quote


Now ,methinks that the Harmanites are taking things a bit too far - shades of Morceamb & Wise's sketch "The Worm that turned !" -about a society dominated by women .(Not commenting on that - Mrs B stands behind me with the unbroken glass rolling pin - and I'm a bit too old to want to feel it's weight -physically or verbally )

But our old (no so much , he's younger than me) MP has decided to stand down at the next election - he's served the town for years ,ex mayor etc - and I've met him a few times -and reckon he's a decent sort of bloke .
But then ,from on high - Labour HQ has decided that he HAS to be REPLACED with a female -as wimmin Labour MP's are in short supply .
Now I've got a question -and I think some of the ladies(WC /Sixty/etc ) might not be offended if I ask it .

If there's a job on offer - surely it's the employer's decision to decide whether it's a bloke or woman getting it - based on the calibre of the employee - not whether or not there's a suitable represantation of sexes employed .

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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

The lower judiciary have no choice other than to enforce the law as passed. The fact that MPs say one thing and enact laws that say something else has been known to us for years. We are too few in number to have any chance of changing this.


Which is why the club stays as it is, and why they are able to continue saying one thing and doing another.


I am in the camp that refuses to accept that moaning about how everybody else is getting things wrong is enough. Neither do I kid myself that I am so busy with important things that I can't spare some time to do something for the benefit of the community. I may not be making much of a contribution but I do at least try.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

You misunderstand the duties of mere magistrates. We are obliged to enforce the law as passed by parliament. As is the rest of the justice system. This so that the public can be sure that if the law doesn't work, its not because the police, CPS or courts have changed it to suit their own beliefs but because parliament got it wrong in the first place.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

[quote="fisherman

I may not be making much of a contribution but I do at least try.[/quote]

not , taking a kick at you , personally ,fisherman ,but then I've been in similar shoes to you - perhaps it's time to say to the establishment (like I did -i'm not your're toy - find another to do you're dirty work )-if enough tell them to get Royaly stuffed ,then perhaps
they'll get the message -I thought (MISTAKENGLY,that I could ,like you )

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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 have two fundimental problems.
1. I do not want the total inconveniance of having or having to cary some stupid id card around all the time.
2. A jumped up idiot of a CC is not following the proper channels to get the law changed. He is employed by the home secretary to police a county, He has a direct route to the home secetary if he wants the law changed. He is not permitted to activly politicaly campaign by nature of his job. By calling press conferences and trying to politically campainging in favour of ID cards he is abusing his power.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Have you tried complaining to his Police Authority about it?

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

I am one person; I have launched genuine police complaints which were deliberately not investigated properly. They could not identify the officer yet named him on the next page. My experience of the system is is as bent as a nine bob note.

We won a court case only for the same judge to be lent on and ban any one else making an appeal against thier convictions unless they could fund it to £30K in the high court. Then the same district judge ignored his own ruling and found another driver guilty of speeding where the signs were substantially defective. Another miscarriage of justice will happen in Southampton crown court in January when the A33 Millbrook road case hits round 4.

Whilst I commend you coming on here trying to understand the issues, I cannot understand the blind faith that all solicitors and judiciary have in the system.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

It is all they (and we) have.
It may be corrupt in some aspects, and it may be imprecise, unwieldy and ineffective.
But it is all there is.
And it pays them, some more than others.
When the new law is passed it will have a load of others attached. I find it interesting to look at those attached laws. It often seems to me that it is the fine print that was wanted, which hides behind the public rhetoric.
Anyway, as said: Legislation without enforcement is a contradiction.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Perhaps because they are involved every day and see cases being dealt with in an independent, unbiased and knowledgeable manner.


Independence from political pressure is guaranteed in law for all members of the judiciary and court clerks. If government were able to "lean on" judges in the manner you suggest they would have no need for this constant stream of new laws which do nothing more than amend a law they passed the month before. As for the lawyers, it would be very hard to find a more independent bunch of people. Any lawyer who can show the system up to be corrupt or politically influenced would make a fortune. I have no doubt that if the situation you describe actually existed it would be all over the papers.



Let me give an example of something i am currently involved with. We had a defendant in court facing a speeding charge. He had refused a fixed penalty and opted for trial. His sole defence was that, when stopped by the police, he asked for a copy of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) to be fetched from the police station for him to read in the back of the police car. This request had been refused. He stated that this meant that the case could not proceed as his legal right had been infringed. We disagreed and found him guilty, he has appealed to crown court.
I have absolutely no doubt that he believes he has been seriously wronged by a corrupt system in which the clerk and bench sided with the CPS to ignore the law and stitch him up. He has said that much in his appeal documents.

Sadly for him the only place this right to have a copy of PACE brought to the roadside exists, is in the fertile and overexercised imagination of an anti speed camera forum who have been putting this particular piece of fiction out for so long that many people around the country honestly believe it to be true. When his crown court appeal fails, as it must being based on fiction, his story will become another piece of "proof" that the system is corrupt and that courts can be leant on by politicians.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

It is much more simple than a human rights case. for 4+ years the police used a laser gun on a duel carriage way. All the signs were wrong. They didn't comply with the law. Some were in the wrong place , some were missing. At the end of the trial lasting 3 days there was not one of the 16 cases that stood which refered to drivers at 4 locations on a road. Police addmitted that they never checked all the signs. (even though over the years they had provided thousands of statements to say that the signage was correct) At the end of the trial the judge had to admit that the limit had no validity.


This was all in a reasoned summing up.
then at the appeal of some other motorist he refused appeals on the grounds that justice must have some finality.

Then a straggling case came to light.


The Southampton case to be heard in January 50+ motorists were convicted when a temp speed limit was signed on the main road but not from side roads including the main container port. The defence argued that it was the courts case to prove they had passed adiquate signing. The prosicutioin argued that there could be two speed limits on the traffic. The court decided it was for the drivers to prove thier route past the inadiquate signing also deciding thet there fore two drivers driving side by side or even in the same lane were subject to different speed limits.

In reality there cannot be two differing speed limits for the same class of vehicle on the same lane, The speed limit was not clear. The reason they could not refund is they could not afford to lose face or cash.

We will see what happens in January at the appeal but I am betting on prosicution winning.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

is it within the bubble

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now retired

The speed camera was within the bubble or envelope. It is not for the driver to state his route as to how he passed defective signs to the camera. It is the prosecutions’ job to prove that what ever route he arrived at the camera that he passed adequate signing. To put it simply they must prove his guilt not he prove his innocence

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I am not able to comment on the reasons why a SCP would, or would not, refund cash as I have no knowledge of their inner workings. I can state that such considerations have no affect whatsoever on a decision by a judge.

When I fine someone I don't get to keep the cash or have any say over where it goes or how it is used. When I order costs to a defendant I have no idea where the money comes from and there is no limit or budget on the amount of public money I can order to be paid out. The only control that exists is that any order I make must be in accordance with the law and backed up by written reasons for my actions. If the actions of a judge cause red faces or loss of cash elsewhere in the system, that is some one else's problem. That level of independence is the only possible way to use judges and has been the case in the UK for a great many years. As is the case with almost all judicial decisions, any body who thinks a judge is wrong in law or has based his decision on faulty reasons can appeal to a higher court.

All judges have their judicial independence guaranteed and their selection and promotion is by non political means. There is no way that a politician could lean on a judge to make him ignore law just to save embarrassment to an SCP. You also have to bear in mind that any judge found to have bent the law in response to political pressure or personal feelings about speed cameras would, at the very least, lose his job and pension. There would also be the very real risk of a significant jail sentence for perverting the course of justice or possibly misfeasance in public office. I have never heard anything to convince me that a judge would take such a risk just to put a few points on a licence and a few ££ into the public purse.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that if a JP if makes a decision which is contrary to legal advice given by the court clerk, that JP would not be covered by the usual indemnity arrangements and would be personally liable for all costs of any subsequent successful appeal. Any clerk who allows himself to be pressurised into a wrong decision for political or personal reasons would be liable to the same disciplinary actions as those that apply to judges. In plain english, for a magistrates court to deliberately find a person guilty of speeding (when they know he is not) in order to avoid embarrassment for their local SCP would require four people - 3 JPs and court clerk - to risk financial ruin and a jail sentence.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

All the same, the volte face by the same judge does appear strange given the pretty similar circumstances reported.

Am I right in thinking that the partners in the SCPs are:

- the Council
- the Police
- the Court Service?

The last one gives me concerns over impartiality.

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

There is a tie up at administrative level which makes some sense as quite a lot of our customers come from the SCP. They (in theory at least) co-ordinate the laying of informations and movement of evidence from SCP files to court files. The judiciary are not allowed to be involved with SCP admin or policy setting. The admin staff of HMCS are not allowed to make judicial decisions. Don't forget that HMCS contains all the courts at all levels. You need not fear that the Law Lords are going to turn down your next appeal because they want the SCP to have your £60. JP control over expenditure is so limited that we have been unable to get the admins to buy a new car park sign to stop the police using our spaces.

Compare it with your local hospital The place is run by admins,who decide how many operating theatres there will be and how many surgeons to employ. But they are not allowed to carry out operations or to tell the surgeons which leg to chop off.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

The local district judge made sure that no one could appeal at crown court level making sure that the law lords never had a chance to over turn the cases. Unless you can gamble £30,000 you cannot appeal.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Hmmm...

Interesting analogy. In the NHS, administrators seem to have strong influence (I won't go as far as control) over the doctors. If they think doctors are spending too much and need to save money then they restrict clinical judgement by restricting the drugs which can be prescribed or the number and type of operations which can be performed. It would not be a big stretch to imagine influence being exerted in other organisations on financial grounds.

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