[Article] Penalty point system in chaos after legal ruling

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/9553503?view=Eircomnet

Penalty point system in chaos after legal ruling
From:The Irish Independent
Wednesday, 20th December, 2006

THE entire penalty points system has been thrown into chaos by a landmark legal ruling.

Scores of convictions for not paying speeding fines have been thrown out of court after drivers successfully argued they never got the original notices, the Irish Independent has learned.

It means any motorist can claim they never got the fixed fine notice, and escape getting points.

Fixed penalty points notices are sent out by ordinary post, not by registered mail. Drivers who argued that they did not get the notice said that the first they heard about the matter was when they got summonses to the district courts, where they received penalty points.

However, in the Circuit Court yesterday, over 40 drivers successfully appealed their convictions. Lawyers representing some of them argued that the fact they never got the initial notice meant that the cases were prejudiced.

Portlaoise contractor William Prior, who fought the system and won, yesterday called for it to be overhauled. He insisted that he never got the initial fixed penalty points notice.

"This is an eye-opener for everyone. I never got the initial notice. I was brought to the district court and was fined €250 and got four penalty points," he said.

"There is a terrible breakdown somewhere in the system. I wasn't even driving on the day," he said.

Almost €80m has been collected from drivers in fines for road traffic offences over the last three years. Justice Department figures released this week revealed the value of fines is set to double this year to around €15m in total.

Around 60pc of all district court cases relate to road traffic offences, including speeding, but there are a significant number of appeals because people claim they did not receive the original fixed charge notice or because they claim they were not driving the vehicle at the time.

The Road Traffic Act says that in a prosecution for a fixed charge offence, it shall be presumed until the contrary is shown that the relevant notice has been served or caused to be served to the drivers concerned.

Where a fixed charge notice for an offence is issued at a later date, service of the notice is by ordinary post.

Where evidence on oath is tendered to a court that a fixed charge notice has not been served, it is up to an individual district court judge to decide whether that presumption has been rebutted.

Lawyers who specialise in road traffic offences say the failure to serve notice in an appropriate fashion could lead to a judicial review of the entire notice process.

Treacy Hogan and Dearbhail McDonald

Drax

Victor - a similar thread in Motors here.

Victor

Drax wrote:

Victor - a similar thread in Motors here.

Thanks.

Ham'nd'egger

Victor, the Indo seems to run a story relating to the Road Traffic laws being revoked or in tatters every other week now, and they inevitably come to nought so I would take it with a pinch of salt. As it happens, I recall this happening some years back in an IOS article so it is not new news a such; I think the term in the Rag Trade for a non story is a "Bad News Day".

In any case, it would be a risk to take such a case to court as one judge may rightfully quash on the grounds mentioned, while another will equally rightfully point out that other aspects of the laws such as informing the rightful authorities of whom was driving ones car at the time of alleged offence, circumstances of offence or even something as simple as answering the summons for appeal will be showing some knowledge of the offence, if not admission of guilt.