Speeding Offences

Receiving a request for driver details or Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) does not mean that 3 points are inevitable, there are various challenges that can be pursued.

Receiving the Request

It is a requirement that the Police send the Registered Keeper of a vehicle a Notice of Intended Prosecution within 14 days of the alleged offence. This is the first challenge that the prosecution have to over-come and they should always be put to proof in this respect.

If this is complied with, it is important to ensure that the preliminaries have been completed correctly by the police. This means ensuring that they have photographs of the vehicle, that the speed is correctly recorded and that they have followed their own guidance. This can include where the police have failed to apply the correct tolerance.

Rhys regularly engages in correspondence with the police which can lead to offences being withdrawn and not proceeded with.

Confirming Driver Details

If you accept you were the driver then that is not the end of the matter. The next step is to ensure that the police follow their own guidance in offering the driver a speed awareness course. This is not done automatically, it is often possible to send representations to the police asking that the course be offered.

If a driver has received multiple requests for details in a short period of time, it is also possible to ask the police to consider not prosecuting all of the offences in line with the public interest test and totality principle.

Conditional Penalty Notice

If you have fewer than 9 points on your licence, the next stage is that the Police will send you a Conditional Penalty Notice, this means paying £100 and receiving three penalty points.

The Charging Decision

If you do not accept the Conditional Penalty Notice, the Police have 6 months to commence a court prosecution. If they do not commence proceedings within this time limit, then the proceedings are time-barred and cannot be pursued.

If the Police begin proceedings within 6 months, they will issue the nominated driver with a Single Justice Procedure Notice. This is a Notice which requests various details including whether the driver intends to enter a Guilty or Not Guilty plea.

Court Proceedings

It is often a surprise to drivers to learn that there are a substantial number of defences that can be deployed against a charge of speeding.

The first thing that the Police have to prove is who the driver was. This may not always be straight forward.

The Police clearly have to prove that the vehicle was travelling at the speed alleged. This can vary as to the type of device that was in use, whether it was handheld or stationary and also whether it was a fixed or average speed check. Rhys regularly challenges the accuracy of a speed recording.

The matters then become far more complex and it is vital to ensure that you have expert representation. The next step is for the police to prove that the device was properly calibrated. They will often try to do this through a certificate, often this will be out of date or wrongly exhibited and so the police cannot rely on it.

One of the most fruitful areas to challenge is that relating to signage. It is a requirement that the police prove that there was adequate signage at the correct intervals. This is rarely done properly and it is essential to have a legal representative who understands how to ensure the issue of signage is correctly challenged.

There are many other matters, including proving that the limit was lawfully in force, which become even more complex and rely on tertiary legislation.

Rhys is regularly instructed by high-profile drivers to defend them against speeding charges, he has an excellent track record in securing discontinuances and acquittals.

Rhys also offers a fixed fee service to review a Notice of Intended Prosecution and to draft correspondence to the Police to challenge the issuing of the Notice.