Double Counting Warning:

[HandyAndy]

They have to give you all relevant information….

They have to disclose some or all of what they have. "Disclosure” means revealing material that they have. If they didn’t have it (and I strongly suspect they didn’t) then they cannot disclose it. They had no need to have it and no need to find it. You are the one who needed it. There are two possible scenarios:

1. The police had this information which they had gathered as part of their investigations into two occasions where you were caught speeding, but they did not disclose it to you.

2. They had not gathered this information as part of those investigations and you believe they should obtain it subsequently.

Which was it and what led you to that conclusion?

...but this is not a pre-hearing, this is a summary trial so not appropriate in this circumstances.

It is appropriate. Summary trials are subject to the same basic Criminal Procedure Rules as Crown Court trials. If you pleaded not guilty to one or both of the charges you would have been asked to explain the basis of your NG plea . Were you asked to do that and did you comply with that request? If, as a result of that, the court decides that a case management hearing is necessary, one should have been held in advance of the trial and before the trial date was set.

At that hearing, the need for evidence and issues of disclosure would be discussed. Depending on which of he two scenarios above was true either (in the case of Scenario 1) you would have been asked to explain why you wanted it and the court would have decided whether or not to order its disclosure or (in the case of Scenario 2) you would have been told that information was not held. The court would not order the police to gather information that they didn't already have.

It could cause a stay of proceedings,

The case management hearing should obviate the need for any further postponements but if there was to be any, It would cause an adjournment, not a stay. A stay in criminal proceedings is rarely used and has a completely different meaning to a stay in the civil court.

Although, as you say, it doesn’t matter now, I’m concerned that you properly understand these principle in case you embark on a similar quest.

Of course, the easiest thing of all if you needed that information (and, as I have said, I believe you did in order to make a successful argument) was to simply obtain it for yourself. If I had been in your position it is one of the first things I would have done.

[Tremarl]

They have to disclose some or all of what they have. "Disclosure” means revealing material that they have. If they didn’t have it (and I strongly suspect they didn’t) then they cannot disclose it. They had no need to have it and no need to find it. You are the one who needed it. There are two possible scenarios:

1. The police had this information which they had gathered as part of their investigations into two occasions where you were caught speeding, but they did not disclose it to you.

2. They had not gathered this information as part of those investigations and you believe they should obtain it subsequently.

Which was it and what led you to that conclusion?



It is appropriate. Summary trials are subject to the same basic Criminal Procedure Rules as Crown Court trials. If you pleaded not guilty to one or both of the charges you would have been asked to explain the basis of your NG plea . Were you asked to do that and did you comply with that request? If, as a result of that, the court decides that a case management hearing is necessary, one should have been held in advance of the trial and before the trial date was set.

At that hearing, the need for evidence and issues of disclosure would be discussed. Depending on which of he two scenarios above was true either (in the case of Scenario 1) you would have been asked to explain why you wanted it and the court would have decided whether or not to order its disclosure or (in the case of Scenario 2) you would have been told that information was not held. The court would not order the police to gather information that they didn't already have.



The case management hearing should obviate the need for any further postponements but if there was to be any, It would cause an adjournment, not a stay. A stay in criminal proceedings is rarely used and has a completely different meaning to a stay in the civil court.

Although, as you say, it doesn’t matter now, I’m concerned that you properly understand these principle in case you embark on a similar quest.

Of course, the easiest thing of all if you needed that information (and, as I have said, I believe you did in order to make a successful argument) was to simply obtain it for yourself. If I had been in your position it is one of the first things I would have done.

There was no case management hearing.

In my plea i clearly expressed the fact there were two FPN with references and gave details for it and my defence.

Hence my points above.

On the information provided they only state a rough area Jx to Jy, they don't state the specific information which is what disclosure is needed for.


None of this is relevant anyway to this particular case as they never disputed my assertions about it being continous in fact. The Magistrate specifically said it was a point of law that they believed we differend on. We've sort of digressed.

I completely understand the point about evidence, but as I've already said this was never disputed and never likely to be disputed, and the requests were made for disclosure for the basic information so that I could even find the distance and the disclosure requests were ignored. This was raised in court, about the continued lack of the police to respond to disclosure requests, but as the material facts were not in dispute, there was no need to carry it further.


Also sorry yes you are correct in regards to the adjournment point instead of a stay.

[HandyAndy]

I think we've gone as far as we can and it's been interesting.

I think the point for me to take from your experience is, regardless of the merits of your argument, from your description of events I don't believe you were treated correctly or particularly justly by the court. The "single offence" argument is one often made and I am surprised you were not given the opportunity to present yours. "Two cameras must equal two offences" is clearly incorrect.

Magistrates' Courts are supposed to cut a bit of slack to unrepresented defendants; they are not expected to know the law or be familiar with court procedures As islandgirl touched on in post #14, whilst legal advice cannot be provided, the court's Legal Advisor has a duty to assist an unrepresented defendant to understand and comply with the procedure.

Just one last question to help me understand all of this - did you actually plead not guilty to one or both of these offences or did you plead guilty with a request for a court hearing? That would certainly influence the way the court handled it.

[Tremarl]

I think we've gone as far as we can and it's been interesting.

I think the point for me to take from your experience is, regardless of the merits of your argument, from your description of events I don't believe you were treated correctly or particularly justly by the court. The "single offence" argument is one often made and I am surprised you were not given the opportunity to present yours. "Two cameras must equal two offences" is clearly incorrect.

Magistrates' Courts are supposed to cut a bit of slack to unrepresented defendants; they are not expected to know the law or be familiar with court procedures As islandgirl touched on in post #14, whilst legal advice cannot be provided, the court's Legal Advisor has a duty to assist an unrepresented defendant to understand and comply with the procedure.

Just one last question to help me understand all of this - did you actually plead not guilty to one or both of these offences or did you plead guilty with a request for a court hearing? That would certainly influence the way the court handled it.

I paid the FPN for one offense and then elected court hearing with a not-guilty plea on the second NIP/FPN and in my statement I argued that I was being charged twice for the same offense.

I sent a E-bundle to the court, that the Magistrate wasn't even aware they had until I referenced it, and also provided the 4 bundles as required, that included a skeleton argument, table of information and references, and then a fuller detailed argument.

Most of the bundle itself was ignored, and little to no progress was made through the actual initial argument due to the fact we got stuck discussing over the point of two offenses or one offense, which I repeated several times to the Magistrate, that this was an argument over a point of fact not of law, to which he said this was a point of law not of fact and that is obviously where the confusion must have taken place and that I must have misunderstood the law.

I personally don't feel like a legal representative such as a barrister would have been treated this way, but at the same time, paying the additional fine was cheaper than hiring a barrister. [Which I made a point earlier in this thread about the issue sometimes we have with access to justice, being in some cases denied in fact, because the punishment costs less than the defense, and there is no certainty in being awarded costs]


It was basically intimated (directly said, then multiple times rephrased, so as to say "we're not coercing you") by the Magistrate that they believed I was guilty and should be submitting that I'm guilty and that if I do that we could then look at same occasion defense that I had mentioned. Which I then subsequently did after much pressure and an adjournment so I could speak with the prosecutor about it.

If you look at the outcome of my case on its own, objectively for me it was not a bad outcome in regards to having a small fine and not getting the second set of points.

However, from a systematic point of view, it is a bad outcome, as this will report back to the police as a successful case, which means the police will continue to issue multiple FPN in these sorts of situations, to which some unlucky folk may then feel like they have to endorse both of them. It also promotes to the police and CPS the idea that it is okay to racketeer by putting multiple cameras next to each other, which I think as a public policy is a bad outcome. I would much rather the police and councils put camera's where they are needed such as several locations locally to me that they have been petitioned for, to increase road safety, rather than as a way of making money.


It would appear the correct answer in these cases is to pay the first FPN, to minimize your overall fine, and then all subsequent FPN go to court, and either plead guilty and cry for leniency under the same occasion argument, or take a punt with a not-guilty plea and possibly get fines + points or acquitted. For many getting less points and paying a fine is preferable.



Oh, on a side note, one thing I did notice while reading all of this and into laws and regulations regarding speeding, is that by and large council members or whomever deals with signage doesn't understand the law/regulations either.

We have swathes of road with the "NSL" sign put up, with lamposts on the road, that are 60MPH single carriage or even 70MPH dual carriageways, where everyone is traveling at that speed, and there are cameras setup on those roads, that clock against that speed, but which according to the regulations/law NSL is actually "30MPH" because of the lamposts, and where they should instead be marked up 60 or 70mph as appropriate.

Now for anyone who reads up on this or goes to a speed awareness course and gets told this, this is mighty confusing, but I guess it is what it is. Its a very minor thing to notice tbh and I'm probably just being overly pedantic about it.

[HandyAndy]

Thanks for that.

There are two schools of thought with this. One suggests doing what you did, the other suggests asking for a court hearing for both offences, pleading guilty to the first but not guilty to the second (on the basis you committed one continuous offence). The advantage of the way you went means you have one offence guaranteed to be dealt with by £100 and 3 points. However, the court has the discretion to sentence one offence (or even both if they reject your argument, though that’s a bit of a stretch) at the FP level if they see fit.

Personally I don’t think that makes much difference – well it certainly shouldn’t anyway.

In summary, I’ll leave aside the merits of your argument. It may have been accepted had you been given the chance to make it, it may not have. I think of far greater importance is your treatment in court. I agree that an advocate would not have received the treatment you were subject to. The court was clearly wrong to say that your argument was a matter of law when it is obviously a matter of fact and an advocate would have soon put them right (and their Legal Advisor not doing so is scandalous). All in all I think you had a very unfair and unjust hearing.

The remedy, of course, is an appeal to the Crown Court. But there comes a time with these things when most people say enough is enough.

I've enjoyed our exchanges and hopefully we both learned a bit (I certainly have).

[Tremarl]

Thanks for that.

There are two schools of thought with this. One suggests doing what you did, the other suggests asking for a court hearing for both offences, pleading guilty to the first but not guilty to the second (on the basis you committed one continuous offence). The advantage of the way you went means you have one offence guaranteed to be dealt with by £100 and 3 points. However, the court has the discretion to sentence one offence (or even both if they reject your argument, though that’s a bit of a stretch) at the FP level if they see fit.

Personally I don’t think that makes much difference – well it certainly shouldn’t anyway.

In summary, I’ll leave aside the merits of your argument. It may have been accepted had you been given the chance to make it, it may not have. I think of far greater importance is your treatment in court. I agree that an advocate would not have received the treatment you were subject to. The court was clearly wrong to say that your argument was a matter of law when it is obviously a matter of fact and an advocate would have soon put them right (and their Legal Advisor not doing so is scandalous). All in all I think you had a very unfair and unjust hearing.

The remedy, of course, is an appeal to the Crown Court. But there comes a time with these things when most people say enough is enough.

I've enjoyed our exchanges and hopefully we both learned a bit (I certainly have).

Yes thank you for the insightful discussion ^__^

I for one didn't realize that the Magistrates had 0 legal training whatsoever. I kind of mistakenly assumed although its lay people, that there would be some sort of legal background, or at very least some basic training course on the matters commonly discussed in court. I understood about the recorder, but never fully appreciated the disparity between the two. [Might have been a bit more forceful had I known in regards to the legal issues, although I feel like its a a tight line to tread, as I don't want to appear flippant to the Magistrate. I'm assuming physically asking the recorder to correct the magistrate would not go down well]

[islandgirl]

I am sorry but everything you have presented thus far shows me that, in my opinion, the mags were 100% correct. I do not buy the speed never dropped argument - we have no idea if this is the case. You could have dropped below the limit then exceeded it massively between the cameras. That is my opinion although I do believe you should have been given the opportunity to present your argument in full and have been helped by the legal advisor. I have also enjoyed the discussion - we can agree to disagree.
Incidentally we are not "particularly minded" with regards to speeding unless you mean minded to punish appropriately. We do receive training - I have 7 online courses to complete and have done one full day in person training this year and many others over the years.

[HandyAndy]

...although I do believe you should have been given the opportunity to present your argument in full and have been helped by the legal advisor.

That's the rub as far as I am concerned, IG.

I'm a strong believer and supporter of the Magistrates' Court system and I always support it against unfair criticism. Of course it has its faults, but so do the alternatives and I believe our system is among the best in terms of fairness and impartiality when it comes to dealing with low level offences. So I suffer some considerable disappointment when I hear stories like this as I'm sure you do.

We were told of two quite fundamental errors - that each camera must equal one offence and that arguing against that is a disputing a matter of law, not fact. I find it astonishing that neither were corrected by the LA and I consider Tremarl was on the wrong end of a very raw deal.

As for he argument itself, like you I have an idea that it may not have been successful, Obviously Tremarl would have been disappointed with that, but not so disappointed as I am when I hear he was not permitted to make it.

[Tremarl]

I am sorry but everything you have presented thus far shows me that, in my opinion, the mags were 100% correct. I do not buy the speed never dropped argument - we have no idea if this is the case. You could have dropped below the limit then exceeded it massively between the cameras. That is my opinion although I do believe you should have been given the opportunity to present your argument in full and have been helped by the legal advisor. I have also enjoyed the discussion - we can agree to disagree.
Incidentally we are not "particularly minded" with regards to speeding unless you mean minded to punish appropriately. We do receive training - I have 7 online courses to complete and have done one full day in person training this year and many others over the years.

Yeh, I accelerated just for the cameras :P

[Manxman]

... The court was clearly wrong to say that your argument was a matter of law when it is obviously a matter of fact and an advocate would have soon put them right (and their Legal Advisor not doing so is scandalous). All in all I think you had a very unfair and unjust hearing.

The remedy, of course, is an appeal to the Crown Court. But there comes a time with these things when most people say enough is enough.

I've enjoyed our exchanges and hopefully we both learned a bit (I certainly have).

I agree about the unfair and unjust hearing*, and it's appalling that the Legal Advisor did not intervene.

It might not be worth appealing against the judgment, but if I were Tremarl I think I'd send a very strongly worded formal letter of compliant to the court and to the courts and tribunals service: Complaints procedure - HM Courts & Tribunals Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) That won't help the OP himself but might rectify a clear training deficit at the mags court in question.


*Although I doubt it would have succeeded even if heard...

[islandgirl]

But there is no training deficit in my view. The only issue is that the Legal Advisor did not explain the OPs point of view and how they reached their conclusions and then let the mags decide.

[HandyAndy]

I think the issue is that the defendant pleaded not guilty but (based on what we have been told) was not allowed to properly put forward his defence. Furthermore, when his defence was summarily batted away he was told his argument rested on a point of law rather than a disputed fact.

Even though the offence was comparatively trivial (though not absolutely trivial to the defendant) I see this as a serious miscarriage of justice. I believe the blame for that lies squarely with the Legal Adviser.

I'm not sure that a formal complaint would achieve much. In particular the HMTCS advice says this:

We’re not able to change the decision in your case or investigate how a judge or magistrate acted towards you.

The remedy lies in an appeal to the crown Court. But the difficulty with that is that whilst a fresh hearing may allow Tremarl to properly put his case (and so make him feel better), there is (in my view) a fairly small chance of success. The last time I looked, costs for a failed appeal in the Crown Court were about £1,300.

There is always Section 142 of the Magistrates' Court Act. This allows the court to reopen a case to rectify mistakes and the power extends to reversing any sentence or order made. The difficulty is that, unlike an appeal to the Crown Court (for which permission is not required), the court must agree to reopening. Whether or not to do so is a judicial decision, not one that can be taken by administrators, and a defendant has the right to have his request to reopen put before the court. There is always difficulty getting this right respected as the request first goes across an administrator's desk. In this case the defendant would almost certainly be told initially that the remedy is via a Crown Court appeal, so some perseverance would be required to explain that it is not (necessarily) the verdict which is in dispute but the mistaken manner in which it was reached.

The advantage of this is that there should be no additional costs involved in the event of failure, though I have a suspicion that Tremarl may have seen enough of the inside of a courtroom for a while.

[islandgirl]

Yes agree with all of that. However on the facts given if it came before me I would not agree to reopen.

[Tremarl]

I think the issue is that the defendant pleaded not guilty but (based on what we have been told) was not allowed to properly put forward his defence. Furthermore, when his defence was summarily batted away he was told his argument rested on a point of law rather than a disputed fact.

Even though the offence was comparatively trivial (though not absolutely trivial to the defendant) I see this as a serious miscarriage of justice. I believe the blame for that lies squarely with the Legal Adviser.

I'm not sure that a formal complaint would achieve much. In particular the HMTCS advice says this:



The remedy lies in an appeal to the crown Court. But the difficulty with that is that whilst a fresh hearing may allow Tremarl to properly put his case (and so make him feel better), there is (in my view) a fairly small chance of success. The last time I looked, costs for a failed appeal in the Crown Court were about £1,300.

There is always Section 142 of the Magistrates' Court Act. This allows the court to reopen a case to rectify mistakes and the power extends to reversing any sentence or order made. The difficulty is that, unlike an appeal to the Crown Court (for which permission is not required), the court must agree to reopening. Whether or not to do so is a judicial decision, not one that can be taken by administrators, and a defendant has the right to have his request to reopen put before the court. There is always difficulty getting this right respected as the request first goes across an administrator's desk. In this case the defendant would almost certainly be told initially that the remedy is via a Crown Court appeal, so some perseverance would be required to explain that it is not (necessarily) the verdict which is in dispute but the mistaken manner in which it was reached.

The advantage of this is that there should be no additional costs involved in the event of failure, though I have a suspicion that Tremarl may have seen enough of the inside of a courtroom for a while.

I think for most people they are never going to appeal these types of offenses regardless of what the Magistrate does, unless they have a particular bee in their bonnet so to speak, because the time effort, hassle, and money (directly/indirect costs) are not really worth it. Which is why in one of my previous posts I made a comment about the Magistrate having de-facto unlimited scope within the authority that its given. The Magistrate could tell the defendant to play hopscotch, and if the defendant complied, I doubt much would happen about it after the fact [unless there is some sort of internal review that happens that I'm unaware of and that is conducted by a third party, without the requirement of a complaint in the first instance]. Now if the defendant refuses then there's contempt levied - that's probably a different story.

I never sought any vindication or anything in all of this. My personal feelings are more of shock and surprise, if anything, which is why I wanted to warn people that its a serious game of dice.


islandgirl I think you probably have a slight leaning/bias against drivers that speed in favour of prosecution where possible, not where procedurally appropriate. Nothing wrong with having such a bias. Some people believe in procedural justice, and some people believe in justice as an outcome.

I think from the point of the legal adviser its not about them explaining my point of the view, but instead I would have thought they are there to correct the Magistrate. When a Magistrate says to a LIP who is assumed to have minimal knowledge of the law, that the crime is defined as "X", and you should plead guilty. Then that is where the correction should happen, otherwise you've got the Magistrate's causing miscarriages by causing guilty pleas based on bad law.

Obviously, I'm not in the situation of being completely misled as to the law, as I'm a rather disagreeable person so require evidence for claims, but the outcome was still the same since they basically intimated that they would find me guilty regardless of what I did and that a guilty plea would result in just a fine instead of points.

[HandyAndy]

...a guilty plea would result in just a fine instead of points.

Just a point of law (yes another one!) if they said that they were wrong. Unless they find "special reasons not to endorse or disqualify" the court must impose a minimum of three points. A guilty plea does not alter that.

"Special Reasons" are not defined but can include things such as being pursued and fearful for your safety or ferrying an emergency to hospital when no other means are available. They certainly don't cover a situation where the court is considering the circumstances you described. The court simply does not have the authority to avoid imposing points in that case. If they considered your "single offence" constituted "special reasons" they were as wrong as they were not to properly hear your argument. Your argument constituted a defence to the charge, not a plea for "special reasons."