Fixed Penalty Point Query

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

Flash

MB Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 18, 2003
Messages
4,949
Location
UK
Car
Mercs
Hi,

My partner was pulled over today by a Police car and was issued a fixed penalty ticket (3 points and £60 fine) for going through a red light.

The car she was driving is registered to myself but she has an insurance policy under her own name on the vehicle.

So the Police officer that issued the ticket has got her name incorrect on the actual ticket as the Officer has put her surname down as mine opposed to her surname!!!!! Therefore, technically there is no such person on the DVLA records to surrender a licence or issue a fixed penalty to as the Officer made a big mistake by issuing the name incorrectly (in fact a ghost name) and my partner even signed the ticket under her signature for her true name. The officer carried full checks on the vehicle and even breathalysed and was very awkward.

Now my question is under some technicality can my partner get away with the offence due to the negligence of the Officer? I have told my partner not to go and surrender her licence and let the Police do all the chasing as they will be looking for a "ghost” person that they cannot prosecute due to their error on the fixed penalty notice which they should have checked the signature of.

What are your views/opinions on this matter? Can my partner technically and legally get away with the offence without being charged/prosecuted?
 
'Fraid not, the ticket issued may have errors but if corrected on the officers thier notes it will still stand.

Your partner MUST produce docs as they were issued with the FPN failing to do so is an offence.

Should you so choose you may request a court hearing within 28 days the date of issue of the FPN and ask the Mags bench what they think, but you will run the risk of more points and a higher fine. This will mean your partner standing in court and stating under oath that they were not driving at the time (you cant admit the offence but say the officer got your name wrong so let me off), is it worth commiting purjury (major offence) for a minor traffic offence!!

Or you could could advise your partner they were putting lives at risk for contravening a red ATS, suck it up, take the points and be thankfull no collision happened?
 
Last edited:
As there are police among us, all I'll say is if you feel you must go down the route of fighting it on a technicality involving identity of the driver, what you must NOT do is enter into any correspondence with the police or courts, there is a (weak) defence that can be used but you will need to pay a knowledgable and brave solicitor to help you with it. Expect a bill of about 50 times the fixed penalty, but if it's that important to you go find a solicitor. No guarantee it'll work either, especially if the police car was video equipped.
 
Should you so choose you may request a court hearing within 28 days the date of issue of the FPN and ask the Mags bench what they think, but you will run the risk of more points and a higher fine. This will mean your partner standing in court and stating under oath that they were not driving at the time (you cant admit the offence but say the officer got your name wrong so let me off), is it worth commiting purjury (major offence) for a minor traffic offence!!

Trust me on this one, there is a way no-one has to take the stand and no-one has to commit purjury, but it's not a cheap trick and the courts are aware of it and tend not to award costs, certainly not the costs that any solicitor will charge for offering the defence.

Or you could could advise your partner they were putting lives at risk for contravening a red ATS, suck it up, take the points and be thankfull no collision happened?

I got a 3 pointer for going through a red to get around a broken down lorry, there was no other vehicle around other than the trafpol - sometimes I think they are too happy to tick the "safety upheld" box and leave the "discretion and circumstances" box open. In twenty years of driving I've seen the attitude of officers change from a common sense one to a box ticking absolute attitude to enforcement - culminating in me having a long stand up argument with one who claimed my car was not on the MID and was calling in for it to be towed, despite me having three children (one wheelchair bound) in the car in adverse weather, less than half a mile from home where I could have produced documents. When he actually put the right number plate through his system he didn't apologise, just got in the car and left.

Add to that the "you didn't look like the kind of person who would drive that kind of car" comment, which I hope got an officer sacked (his partner told him to get back in the car after saying that), and the number of times I got stop checked after my last court win, and the time I picked up a mate who was on a ban and got stopped twice in one night "just to make sure he wasn't driving", and it's no wonder there is no respect left for driver policing.

With all respect to the good coppers out there, please, go catch some real criminals who are causing offense, injury and loss to people, not those of us who pay our taxes, pay our bills, pay our (soon to be £6.00/gallon) fuel and pay your wages.
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

The Officer has not asked for any documents to be produced as all checks were carried out on the computer database and only has requested for the license to be surrendered in 7 days.

How does it work if the license is not surrendered - do Police issue a warrant or simply send correspondence via post/summons?

The Police car has got the incident on video tape.
 
i've NEVER surrendered my license, not once in 12 years of driving and at one point had 11 pts.

the points are added automatically or always have been to mine.
 
If you don't have a licence in the name of the person on the ticket , how can you surrender it ? ;)
 
If the doc requested are not produced the FPN will revert to summons to the peron named on the FPN.

Should no reply come from the summons (as you said the name is wrong so the person would not reply) then you as the keeper with get a request to inform who was the driver at the time of the offence, should you not be able to recall for some reason, you are then liable for failing to inform.

Some rules are to be guided by, some are to be obayed or enforced, for all our sakes.
 
Last edited:
Should you so choose you may request a court hearing within 28 days the date of issue of the FPN ...

It's (touch wood) a few years since I had a FPN but I thought they reverted to a summons automatically if you didn't pay the FPN - I wasn't aware that you needed to take any action?

I think the route one or two other posters are going down is where the Officer fails to correctly identify the driver. One of the Stobart family got off with speeding using this defence Safe Speed Forums • View topic - Driver Identification
 
And on a side note to timskemp, this year alone I have dealt with, two fatalites are as a direct result rom a ATS jumping, some rules are to be guided by, some are to be obayed or enforced, for all our sakes.

I never said they shouldn't.

But here's the thing, we're enforcing the law in one hand on the absolute of it being broken even if there is no consequence, yet on the other a driver who crashes into a railway line receives a sentence commensurate to the consequences not the offence?

It's a difficult debate, and there's no right answer, I just think the discretion has been taken away from the officer on the ground, I remember when I was much younger knowing that being caught doing 90 on an empty motorway at night would get you at the most a stern telling off and a check of your documents and often just a flash of the blues to make sure you knew you weren't actually alone, now we live in fear of being caught at anything over 78mph (or less if the copper is having a bad day) despite driving cars that are far more capable and safe.

The camera culture makes this worse, I have on my desk a letter from the operators of a local mcdonald's carpark who are trying to extort £125 from me because I chose to sit and drink a few coffees after having breakfast with a colleague one morning - of course there is video evidence to support their allegation. That makes it OK of course.

You can probably tell from my tone I think the motorist gets a very very raw deal in the UK - huge taxes, huge costs, poor policing with too much emphasis on speed and not on general driving standards, and inconsistent sentencing in courts (causing death by dangerous driving should be closer to manslaughter, but should exceeding the speed limit be punished more severely than a simple public order offence?)

I haven't got the solutions, I'd support retesting every 10 yrs, more stringent medical standards, restricted licenses for new drivers, closer monitoring of persistent drunk / dangerous drivers, anything that would improve standards, but I'd also stand behind a much raised motorway speed limit, removal of all speed humps and chicanes (more danger than benefit) and the return of common sense to police and government in general.
 
It's (touch wood) a few years since I had a FPN but I thought they reverted to a summons automatically if you didn't pay the FPN - I wasn't aware that you needed to take any action?

I think the route one or two other posters are going down is where the Officer fails to correctly identify the driver. One of the Stobart family got off with speeding using this defence Safe Speed Forums • View topic - Driver Identification

FPN have 3 parts, part 1 is the HORT/1 (known as the producer, docs requested within 7 days from midnight of date issued), part 2 within 28 days payment of fine by post/phone/online to HMCS, part 3 within 28 days request a court hearing.

Part 3 allows people to take legal advise before commiting to court hearing at the roadside.
 
Ask on FightBack Forums

I reckon that ticket will get thrown out long before it gets near a court.

A few years ago I'd have said yes, now I'd say you've got a fight on your hands and a 50/50 chance of beating the system.
 
A few years ago I'd have said yes, now I'd say you've got a fight on your hands and a 50/50 chance of beating the system.

50/50 chance of increasing your penalty?
 
Or you could could advise your partner they were putting lives at risk for contravening a red ATS, suck it up, take the points and be thankfull no collision happened?

It isnt true that everytime someone goes through a red light they are putting lives at risk. I live in a small town where there is next to no traffic after midnight. There is a set of lights that are known to ignore people doing a right turn so you could be sitiing there for 5 minutes with no single car going past. It gets so scary that if I am in my Pug I always remember to lock my doors when I get to the lights.

Would I be putting any lives at risk if i decide to jump this red light?
 
Last edited:
You certainly risk an easy three points and 60 squid going diffy from your wallet.

You could risk jumping other red lights doing a right turn, perhaps not in your village, if your mind slipped into autonima when driving at night.

Would you be putting lives at risk. Your decision and your consequence to live with forever should you get it wrong.
 
Slightly OT, but some years back I was at a set of lights on a quiet road in Buckhurst Hill, probably about 2.00 a.m. There was a car in front of me patiently waiting at the green light. As soon as it turned red, he duly went on his way....

No real danger (though of course there could have been) and much amusement for me and Mrs PXW.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom