The Defence Brief

A short post on section 172 notices this afternoon. I tend to focus on drink driving offences, although I do undertake any type of motoring law case if asked, so section 172 notices pop up from time to time in my work. If you don’t already know, section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires the registered keeper of a vehicle to identify the driver of the vehicle when the police allege that the driver at the time was responsible for an offence. If you’ve ever had a speeding ticket through the post then you will probably have been sent one of these documents sent out with the Notice of Intended Prosecution. Failing to provide the information is an offence in itself that carried a fine and six penalty points. There are technical legal defences but the most common defence I’ve seen is people giving evidence that they did return the form but it got lost somewhere along the line. In general, when a person gives evidence that they posted the section 172 notice having comple...

The Labour Government sought to introduce plans to prevent acquitted defendants to criminal cases from recovering their costs from the prosecution.  In all cases, whether civil or criminal, it is said that "costs follow the event", which means that the losing side gets to pay the legal costs of the winning side.  In criminal courts up and down the country you will daily see defendants who have been convicted or pleaded guilty being ordered to pay the costs claimed by the prosecution.  Equally, if a defendant chooses to pay for his own defence and is acquitted then the prosecution has to repay him the money he spent defending himself. So, to be clear what we are talking about are people who have been accused of a crime and found to be not guilty of that crime by either a jury or a bench of magistrates. The Labour Government was judicially reviewed by those concerned about civil liberties (and no doubt some lawyers concerned about their income - let's not pretend that l...

What I am about to say may well be controversial to some; however I think it is well worth saying: speed is no where near the main cause of accidents in the UK. It is worth taking the time to think about what we mean by the claim that "Speed Kills".  Do we mean that going very fast will kill you?  If so then that is demonstrably rubbish.  The fastest I have ever driven a car is 180MPH (at Silverstone race track before anybody suggests I would ever exceed a speed limit).  I have travelled at close to 600MPH and despite both I am still alive.  Others have gone much faster and lived to tell the tale.  So, speed itself is not a killer.  How then does speed kill?  Well, the culprit is not speed but inappropriate speed.  I accept that the warning "Inappropriate Speed Kills" may not have the same ring to it. The Institute of Advances Motorists has just released research on the various contributory causes of accidents and I have to say that the m...