motoring offence

[joseph78]

hi, i committed a motoring offence 4 months ago, and have not heard anything yet from the magistrates, and i am now going away for 10 weeks this will be then taken over the 6 month peroid,what would happen if when i came back i had recieved a court summons could i still be prosecuted even though it is over the 6 month period?

[JudgeJ]

In normal circumstances, if you were not warned that you may be prosecuted at the time of the alleged offence, a �Notice of Intended Prosecution� must be sent (but not necessarily received by you) within fourteen days. Prosecutors have six months from the date of the offence to bring the matter to court. The fact that you may be away whilst all this is going on does not affect those time limits.

Normally, if you plead guilty in response to a motoring summons, you will be entitled to a �discount� of up to a third of your penalty (note in motoring cases this only applies to any fine, not the penalty points). If the summons is sent whilst you are away (and so you do not respond) there is every likelihood that the case will be heard in your absence. This may result in a conviction and a penalty being imposed which has not been �discounted �(because you were not around to enter your guilty plea).

If this does happen, you will have to go to court to ask for the case to be reopened and reheard, so giving you the opportunity to enter your plea. If you do this, be prepared to provide evidence of your absence, including proof that you were unable to access your mail.

The only other alternative is to contact the court and explain you will be away. Doing this, however, may stir them into action when there is a chance that your case may have been �lost in the system� and so end up time-expired.

[rugeleyboy]

i was pulled over by our local contabulary last year and was given a producer for my documents!!

however, i was so busy io forgot to take them in and to this day i still have not!!

but it has been over 12 months now so hopefully i am lost in the system??

[Grunty]

You do not say what offence was involved. Only some require a notice of intended prosecution to be sent within 14 days.

[stephen6869]

Hi,

What Judge J says is correct. However if it were my situation I would not contact anybody. The prosecution have six months to issue a summons from the date of the offence, but the case may be heard after the six months. The prosecution must ;rove proof of service of the summons whether by registered post, personal service, or by other postal service. If a summons is not served on you by any of the above means the case can not be heard as it cannot contain the statuary declaration of service required and the case would not be heard in your absence.So my advice is sit low and let the prosecution make a move first. They still hasve time.

[JudgeJ]

The prosecution does not have to prove service of a summons in order to persuade magistrates to proceed in absence. All they have to do is to show that the summons was posted (to the last known address that the prosecutor has for the defendant) in time for the summons to reach that address in good time for the hearing, assuming normal postal timescales.

Motoring summonses are not sent by registered or recorded post, nor are they personally served. In the event that a summons is not received either at all or in good time, and the defendant is convicted in his absence, the onus will be upon him to go to court, and persuade the magistrates to re-open the case as I have described. If he does not do so, the original sentence will stand.

Remarkably few requests are heard to re-open cases in such circumstances and this suggests to me that the system works reasonably well.