Failing to provide information relating to the identification of a driver

[Supercars]

may we ask do you work in a court? if so in your opinion should this have gone to court as it seems that the only reason it went to court was because the last screenshots were sent late due to a delay out of our control?

[islandgirl]

I am a magistrate so hear cases such as this. I am sure the Police had their reasons but it does seem strange. However there are sometimes cases where we wonder why it got to court so it does happen! Without hearing the prosecution's side of things I could not judge. However as I say the clerk will help your manager with the process and give him chance to explain what happened.

[Supercars]

I am a magistrate so hear cases such as this. I am sure the Police had their reasons but it does seem strange. However there are sometimes cases where we wonder why it got to court so it does happen! Without hearing the prosecution's side of things I could not judge. However as I say the clerk will help your manager with the process and give him chance to explain what happened.

just one last thing- when we spoke to the police investigator after we received the postal requisition she basically just said that the screenshots we sent in october were received after the case was closed and prepared for court. When we received the postal requisition it contained the investigators witness statement and the last entry says 'on the 16th october 2019 the records held at the collaborated cameras tickets and collisions unit were checked, which showed that a reply has not been received that has fulfilled the obligations under section 172 of the road traffic act 1988' so it seems the polices argument may just be that the screenshots were received late after they closed the case. If this is the case how likely do you think it would be for us the get a not guilty verdict going off everything we've explained to you about our screenshots being slightly late due to an issue out of our control and the fact that the police gave us incorrect information which led to us sending evidence that was irrelevant the first time.

also can we use evidence that we didn't originally send off with our plea form as we've just found it now?

[islandgirl]

I am not a lawyer but I think what matters is did you send a response to the request for information as to the driver within the timescale identifying the driver and can you prove you sent it? I saw a case where someone said he posted it but the police said they had not received it. He had no proof of postage. He was found guilty. Forget all the extra proof etc the case will turn on that in my opinion.

[Supercars]

I am not a lawyer but I think what matters is did you send a response to the request for information as to the driver within the timescale identifying the driver and can you prove you sent it? I saw a case where someone said he posted it but the police said they had not received it. He had no proof of postage. He was found guilty. Forget all the extra proof etc the case will turn on that in my opinion.

We received a notice of intended prosecution form. is this what you mean? if so we responded to this with the 28 days given and have proof of that as we always take a photo of what we send. On the witness statement from the investigator it says they received our response on 28/08/2019 with our nominated driver. they then sent an NIP form to the driver who told them it wasn't him which is why they sent us another letter requested evidence to support our nomination

[islandgirl]

Ok so it looks like you did what you were supposed to do! I do not see that you could be guilty of failure to provide information though, as I say, I have not seen the prosecution case!. As I have said take EVERYTHING you have with you on the day. Good luck and please let us know what happens.

[Supercars]

Ok so it looks like you did what you were supposed to do! I do not see that you could be guilty of failure to provide information though, as I say, I have not seen the prosecution case!. As I have said take EVERYTHING you have with you on the day. Good luck and please let us know what happens.

thanks for all your help. in your experience should the police have even taken this to court in october for failing to provide information when they confirmed they received the NIP from us with the drivers details on in august? it seems they chose to process it for court because they requested the final evidence from us and after a week we hadn't sent it due to a tracker issue which we told them about. surely they could have kept it open or contacted us to see what was happening as we sent the evidence 2 days after they processed it for court

[islandgirl]

That is something you can ask at the trial - explain politely that you do not understand why you are in court when you did return the form as requested. It may be because the driver has denied being the driver? Look forward to hearing what happens on the day.

[Supercars]

That is something you can ask at the trial - explain politely that you do not understand why you are in court when you did return the form as requested. It may be because the driver has denied being the driver? Look forward to hearing what happens on the day.

when the driver denied it was them the police asked us for extra evidence which is what we sent on time. they then asked us for more evidence which took longer for us to get and that's when it was processed for court so it seems they sent it to court because we didn't send the final evidence quick enough. Our hearing is tomorrow so hopefully we get the not guilty verdict

[islandgirl]

Yes fingers crossed. On the face of what you have posted here (and not having seen the opposition case) it looks like you did not fail to provide the information. Take all the information you have even if you think you may not need it, be ready to explain what happened in detail with dates to hand and written out so they can quickly be found.. Good luck tomorrow.

[Supercars]

I still find it confusing why this is in court - the initial information should have been enough to avoid the prosecution. I know the speeding offence is not mentioned but take everything with you just in case! I expect London courts are very busy so your manager may well wait around a lot. In our court (if there are no custody cases) we take the people who signed in first at the desk first into court (in sign in order). You could ask to see the duty solicitor too but they may well not agree to see you or be busy but it is a free service if they are.

Hi our manager went to the hearing today and spoke to them and the court has now told him it's going to to trial and he has to go back in February. They're saying we sent too much evidence with our plea form and we did not provide enough information proving the driver had the car and so it has to go to trial. We sent tracker screenshots showing the car at the customers house on the 27th and 28th. We then sent more screenshots showing the car in watford still on the 29th which was the day of the fine as requested by the police. The driver brought the car to luton for us to collect and he got caught speeding on the way to luton so it's difficult for us to show anything on the tracker that proves he had it. Is there anything we can do to prevent this going to trial as we don't think it's fair that we have to do all of this because a customer lied to the police? He told them he returned the car on the 28th but we sent screenshots proving the car was still near his house on the 29th where he was driving it around still but apparently this isn't enough.

[islandgirl]

Firstly I am sorry this did not end yesterday for you. The court clearly did not think that the evidence you provided proved who was driving / proved that you did not fail to provide true details of the driver (ie prove that you are not lying about who is driving). As I said before your hearing, without seeing the case made by the Police it is hard to know what will happen in advance. However you now really, really need to prepare for February and start NOW. Firstly and foremost you need a solicitor to represent you in court at the trial. Secondly you will need to get them to arrange for witnesses to be called on the day. You will need to call the person you say was driving. The problem is that the screenshots and the pictures of the van outside the drivers house do not prove who was driving. Do you have anything at all other than the pictures? Emails between you and the driver about the hire period? Text messages? Anyone else who can stand up in court and swear on oath when the driver collected it and when it was returned. This is the level of detail you will have to provide. It will cost money to defend but probably a lot less than the fine. Go and speak to a good solicitor for free (you usually get 30 mins to describe your case and ask how they can help). It may be that the solicitor can write to the Police and try to get the hearing withdrawn if there are sufficient grounds.Good luck - please come back and keep us informed.

[Supercars]

What is going to trial though - the speeding or the fail to provide?

I've just spoken to my manager who went to the hearing yesterday and he said it's for the fail to provide. He said they basically said its because we sent the information 2 days after they checked their system for the evidence they'd requested from us. He said they said we didn't fulfill the information when requested. This is because we had an issue with our trackers which we told them about and they did not give us a specific date to return them by. My manager said as well that he went there yesterday on time and signed in and was sitting around waiting for around 3 hours to be seen. People that were coming in after him were being seen before him and when he spoke to someone about it to complain they said they'd made a mistake and they'd try get him seen next.

[islandgirl]

I am not surprised by what happened yesterday - courts are backlogged and a little chaotic. I did warn you he would have to wait around! I think there is an argument that you did send the first lot of info on time and therefore did meet the conditions but it depends on the correspondence between you and you need a solicitor to unpick these issues for you and represent you on the day (see post above).

[Supercars]

I am not surprised by what happened yesterday - courts are backlogged and a little chaotic. I did warn you he would have to wait around! I think there is an argument that you did send the first lot of info on time and therefore did meet the conditions but it depends on the correspondence between you and you need a solicitor to unpick these issues for you and represent you on the day (see post above).

Hi the argument we have is that we sent them tracker screenshots showing the car outside the customers house. To us this proves he had the vehicle as why else would it be directly outside his house. They were the ones who then spoke to our manager on the phone and asked us to send screenshots from the fine date showing that the car was in Watford still. We literally sent what the police asked us to send and now the court is saying it isn't enough but its what the police requested.

Secondly the customer is based in Watford and we are based in Northampton. The customer told the police he returned the vehicle on 28/07/2019 but yet we have tracker screenshots showing the car in Watford still on the 29th. Surely that is enough proof to see that the customer lied. We are based in Northampton so would not have been driving the car in Watford ourselves. All of this has happened because the customer lied about never having the vehicle. The car was in Watford still 2 minutes from his house at 19:15 he then drove the car back to Luton for us to collect and the fine was at 19:44. We are unable to view the trackers for that date now but on the screenshot it looks like the car then drives until just before 8 where the engine goes idle. It then drives a little bit more and then is parked up and the engine goes off until around 10pm. We believe he got the fine whilst driving the car to Luton for us. Would we not be able to use this to get it cancelled with the police as they sent it to court because it was 2 days late but a solicitor told us they shouldn't have sent it to court as they had 6 months to pursue the driver and the evidence we sent was enough.