IN10 prosecution, accepted conditional offer and closed, now found insurance evidence

[Driversegg]

I was stopped by lancs police on 8th Feb for allegedly driving my parent’s car without insurance/third party cover.

At the time of the incident I was adamant with the officer that I had third party cover to driver other vehicles. The police officer asked for to check my own vehicle insurance details to see if I did and turned out that I didn’t.

I then subsequently received a letter in the post couple of weeks later, had surrendered my license details when I received the letter from the police in the post and paid a £300.

I later realised after accepting the conditional offer, that I had ‘driving other vehicles’ cover on another vehicle I own with a separate insurance policy to the one I gave to the officer, I contacted the police safer units department via email to notify them of this and their response was the following:

“Thank you for your correspondence.

As your case is closed on police systems due to the fact you have fully complied with the conditional offer there is nothing further, we can do in regards to your offence.

Kind regards,

Ellie
Safer Roads Unit”

Is there any way I can appeal this considering I accepted the conditional offer of 6 points (IN10) and £300 fine? I’m not even bothered about the £300 fine, I would like the points gone ideally.

[echat11]

Hi Driversegg

Welcome to LB

islandgirl Can you please take a look.

[HandyAndy]

There is no mechanism that I know of which can reverse your acceptance of the Fixed Penalty offer.

The difficulty is that you talk of an "appeal" but you have nowhere to appeal to. There has been no error in law, no unduly harsh sentencing and no argument over matters of fact. The police have made no procedural errors; they offered you a fixed penalty to avoid prosecution and you accepted it - a choice that was entirely yours. The matter is closed as far as the police are concerned and they will not revisit it. The Magistrates' Court will not be interested as no prosecution has been laid before them. You cannot appeal to the Crown Court as that can only be done following a conviction in the Magistrates' Court.

You would be in much the same position had the matter gone to court and you entered a guilty plea. In that event you would have had one avenue to explore - you could have asked the Magistrates to reopen your case under Section 142 of the Magistrates' Court Act. They have the power to do this when they believe it is "in the interests of justice" to do so. But they would be unlikely to accede to your request. All very much by the way in your case anyway, as you were not prosecuted in the Magistrates' Court. But I included this option for information along with my belief that the court would refuse your request in order to show that a guilty plea - very much like the acceptance of a fixed penalty - very much closes the door on any further intervention.

You could always consider a Judicial Review (of the police decision not to revisit the matter). This would take place in the High Court. Firstly permission for the review has to be granted. This is unlikely to be given. Judicial Reviews are held when there is an allegation that a public body has acted unlawfully or exceeded its powers. The police have done neither and they are not obliged to reconsider once you have accepted the FP. In short, it would be an expensive dead end.

[islandgirl]

Perfectly put Handyandy. The OP had the opportunity to provide the insurance details and did not (mistakenly as it turns out) and accepted the fine. They have "a couple of weeks" to look for the other insurance. It is a very expensive mistake, unfortunately.

[Driversegg]

Thanks for the responses, I had a feeling this would be the case but just wanted to put my my mind at rest knowing I tried!

[Manxman]

... I contacted the police safer units department via email to notify them of this and their response was the following:

“Thank you for your correspondence.

As your case is closed on police systems due to the fact you have fully complied with the conditional offer there is nothing further, we can do in regards to your offence.

Kind regards,

Ellie
Safer Roads Unit”

Is there any way I can appeal this considering I accepted the conditional offer of 6 points (IN10) and £300 fine? I’m not even bothered about the £300 fine, I would like the points gone ideally.

The only way you will have a chance (and even then only a vanishingly small one) of getting this reversed is by the police exercising some residual discretion to do so. There's no way anybody in the Safer Roads Unit will have the authority to do that.

If you really want to satisfy yourself that you've tried everything, I suggest that you write to the Chief Constable and ask very very very nicely if they would nullify the pints and refund the fine. That's what I'd do but I think your chances of success are extrememly remote.


BTW - why did the police stop you in the first place? Was your parents' car showing up on the police computer as being uninsured or did the police have another reason to pull you over? I'm wondering if there might be anything else to this that might sway the police one way or the other...