Safe Speed Forums

errrrrmmm.....

Where have you been?

Sounds to me like the were convicted of "failing to identify". Considering they couldn't be bothered to turn up in court and put their side of the argument across it's pretty much to be expected.

Like someone has said though, there's always the appeal.

There is a more fundamental issue ... when the High Court ruled, on this it seems that it did not mean that Failing to ID and the speeding offence is of the same value and this has happened here.
(NB. I have much detail to read on this and for the minute this is what I understand to be the case.)
The worrying fact is that, (one assumes that the statement of fact -unknown ID- is true) the Court implies that they have failed to prove the information that the Court requires, but what more can the Court have expected of them ?
The implication of this is that they needed to decide who was to accept the points and fine and in doing so bearing in mind the original truth of the statement made, will then mean that they are in fact lying to the Court, by accepting a standard fine / points. This is a very serious state of affairs for the Legal system, and the public, as when lying to the Court saves you money and points, the balance that citizens have to chose is one of unfairness and that is not what the Courts are about.
So how can justice occur if this is to be sorted out - has the 'system' become so over-zealous that it now has gone far too far? For any citizen to be assimilated into an unfair system is unacceptable. Proof of ID as is required by the legal system, needs to be by the Police not by the citizen.
As for asking all motorists to retain a log is preposterous.
I am not sure about their attendance in Court. I can only assume that they had legal advice that advised them not to attend? I don't know. How (Fisherman) might this have helped exactly? [Sorry if I have missed something - I can understand the Court might prefer it but what actual benefit?] If the defendants don't know - what more can they add? Can a judge look at the two of them and try and decide who is innocent and who is guilty? Could they not have been previously notified that their attendance was required ? If that is the case then yes it was silly not to go - at least, but were they? Did their legal team advise them not to go ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

It's all very well saying that the conviction was for failing to identify, but that doesn't make this any less of a travesty, whether they foolishly skipped court or not. My indignation does not stem from any anti-authoritarian motoring bias, but from a keen interest in seeing justice served, and the rights of the accused defended. Only one of them would have been liable for failing to identify, and I believe that would be the RK.

The fact doesn't change that the court knew full well that only one could have been guilty, regardless of the charge. It is not within the remit of any judge to mete out group punishment (above and beyond that for the offence itself) in the absence of proof of the offender's identity! On this alone I would expect an appeal to be successful. I wouldn't be surprised if someone speciously brings up the circumstance of murder in a gang setting, but this is quite clearly a completely different matter, for plainly obvious reasons!

I would also expect proportionality to be an issue at any appeal. The fact that the penalty imposed is four timesthat which could have been expected for either original offence. Perhaps fisherman could tell us what the upper limit would be for an individual? There has still only been the one offence.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

and with the one offense being that of Failing to ID than that if speeding the max £1000 and 6 points for the speeding offence (as I understand it) is it 'right' that this be applied to the Failing to ID part - it is possible I understand but it is correct as it changes the onerous of the 'crime'. That is that the speeding is now as bad as Failing to ID when in doing so may make you lie to the Court so that your fine and points are less. Hardly a just process.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

let me apologise in advance to those who find my habit of quote and reply to individual posters tedious. I am not very computer literate and find it the easiest way to proceed. It also leaves no doubt as to which point of which post I am replying to.

Not so. Neither of them was punished for the original offence of speeding which could only have been committed by one of them. Both were punished for the offence of fail to supply information which was committed by both of them.

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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.

see previous response

There is. They were.

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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 not aware that anyone is in any doubt that quote and reply is not standard and correct. I certainly do it all the time. I personally find less than ideal when a following post quote the whole of the previous post, to me this seems un-necessary. However do let me know (everyone) if this is an issue and we can address it.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

It is true that only one could have been speeding but neither was convicted for that. They both failed to name the driver AND both failed to use reasonable diligence.


Not so. they were required to name the driver OR show that, despite using reasonable diligence, they were unable to remember. Remember that in any trial for any offence a court can draw an inference from a defendants refusal to answer questions. You can't convict on refusal and inference alone but it can be part of the prosecution case.


There is no requirement for private individuals to keep any kind of record although a few cases in the higher courts have commented that it might be useful for cars shared by numerous drivers. Note: comments that it might be useful which falls short of creating a precedent or instruction that records must be kept. There is a requirement for a drivers log to be kept for company vehicles. Even then there is a defence for a company to show that failure to keep such a record did not adversely affect the companies ability to ID the driver.

It is probable that the speeding driver would have got 3 points. The 12 points were 6 each. So the true comparison is 6 versus 3.

To understand this case you need to know the background. When s172 first came, in a simple reply that the recipient couldn't remember who was driving resulted in the case being dropped. Then one of the forums dedicated to helping motorists avoid conviction said that if you "forgot" who was driving you would escape prosecution. The number of people who were unable to remember shot up. So new guidance resulted in such cases going to court to demonstrate reasonable guidance. Which resulted in a drop in the number of people who couldn't remember. That in turn resulted in the forum I mentioned earlier pointing out that if you were liable for 4 or more points for your speeding it would still be advantageous to "forget" who was driving. Hence the rise to 6 points. But only after the European Courts had considered S172 and decided that it was OK.


The original s172 would have gone to the RK. He or she must have named the other person. Having been given the name of a person who may have been guilty of an offence, the authorities followed it up.

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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.

They have more rights than a joyrider. A joyrider who keeps silent may be convicted on the basis of other evidence together with an inference drawn by the court that he kept silent because there was no one else to name. S172 has a statutory defence of reasonable diligence.


No. Perjury is (roughly) telling lies on oath in the course of a court hearing. People can and do change their minds about things without being charged with perjury. For example you wouldn't believe the number of defendants facing charges of violence who maintain a not guilty plea through endless case management hearings and decide they are guilty on day of trial when the witness turns up. They lose their early guilty plea discount but don't face perjury charges.

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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.

Which will probably result in the public paying for it. I would like to bet that the people who complain so loudly when the public pay for costs of an appeal due to a fault of the court system will not make a fuss about this one.

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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.

An excellent thread indeed!

BUT... I still feel that this is unjust. People get points on their licences for committng offences that the state believes cause danger to other road users, do they not? (let's not forget that the offence was exceeding a speed limit by 10MPH in this case ). They get more points, the more dangerous the offence is percieved to be. IF they get too many, they get stopped from driving for a while. I can see the sense and justice in this system (leaving aside my views on the actual levels at which points are awarded).

So if the "crime" was not remembering who was driving (a situation which I know I could EASILY find myself in two weeks after an alleged event!) why the points? and even then, why DOUBLE the points?! Sorry, that's just vindictive. We used to have a legal system where the punishment was grossly disproportionate to the crime - people were hung for stealing a loaf of bread or sent to the colonies. I believe we are seeing a slow, but steady return to such a system. The authorities are "loosing the plot" and, as before, are so desperate to "make an example of someone" that justice is being forgotten.

I can't answer much of this because only the people concerned will know why they did what they did. If they had turned up unrepresented the Legal Advisor (formerly known as the Court Clerk) would have assisted them to present a defence. They would have been given an explanation of reasonable diligence and taken through the steps they took to ascertain the ID of the driver. It is clear that many defendants haven't bothered to try to find out who was driving they just put in a knee jerk "can't remember". When they have tried to find out it often becomes clear that they have used reasonable diligence.

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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.

In the first instance that would be the case. However, when the RK names another person he or she then becomes party to the proceedings. It would be a nonsense if the RK could name another person and the authorities took no further action.


For the original allegation which gave rise to the s172 that would be correct. However, once two people are possible drivers those two may then face fail to supply charges. Neither was punished for the speeding.

Given that the defendants would have confirmed their ID on oath in the presence of the judge and explained what efforts, if any, they took to ID the driver there can be no doubt as to the identity of the defendants for the charge of fail to supply.


I have no doubt that any appeal will be based on new evidence on the matter of reasonable diligence. Any appeal based on s172 is unfair is unlikely to be successful as it has already been to the eurpean courts.


As I am sure you are aware but others may not be, convictions on the basis of joint enterprise are possible for gang type offences. I hope that never becomes possible for cases of this kind.


The punishment for fail to supply is set by the sentencing guidelines council at 6 points and a fine related to income. The starting point for a first time fail to supply is based on 150% of a weeks pay.

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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.

As I have already posted, more than once, there is NO PENALTY for being unable to remember. There is a penalty for not bothering to try to find out. I have already posted my understanding of the reasoning behind the points.

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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 legislation as it stands puts people in an impossible situation. If the RK says they don't know who was driving and don't pick a name then they will probably get done for failure to name. If they looked at the photos and the photos didn't show clearly who was driving then this should be sufficient to stop the failure to name. It should also be sufficient to stop the speeding conviction as the prosecution can't prove who it was. If the RK naming someone else drags that other person into a potential failure to name it still seems grossly unfair. Which leaves them open to one saying it was the other and the other saying it was the RK. Does that absolve them if they just name each other? Is it better for the named person to say 'it wasn't me' if they were either unsure whether it was or genuinely didn't know.

For example. I borrow a car when I take mine to a garage. If one of them got a ticket on the day I borrowed the car just before I take it they could easily name me. What level of certainty do you need that it wasn't you to deny it was? Does the S172 have the option just to say it wasn't you and bat it back to the RK as you don't know who it was? Is this again sufficient to protect you from prosecution?

The offences committed here were failing to provide the information requested; both found guilty because they didn't bother to make the correct or satisfactory reply.

The missed offence is speeding for which the lady owner could have been convicted because when no driver is named then it is lawful to assume the owner was the driver, she therefore got away with 6 points when she should have had 9.

I am sure magistrates find this sort of attempt to frustrate justice by claiming not to recall who was driving when the vehicle was illuminated by 2 almighty flashes 0.5 seconds apart. Should be most memorable I would say.

Can you really easily notice flashes from behind, from an elevated position and likely to be on the passenger side?
(You have implied a gatso type setup)

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

They are very obvious. Gatso, Truvelo, Redspeed.

The legislation as it stands gives a statutory defence of reasonable diligence. That is the lowest level of statutory defence I am aware of. It is open to anybody who is charged with fail to name.

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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.

So what exactly would be reasonable diligence? This is the whole crux of the matter. What does a person actually have to do if they genuinely don't remember who was driving?