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Convicted of an offence that everybody agreed was never committed

Our first client was convicted of failing to provide an evidential breath sample at the police station and sentenced to a ban of 12 months and a hefty fine.

When our client first came to us he confirmed that he had already been convicted and that he had been represented by a firm of solicitors in London.

Our client told us that he had been stopped in relation to an allegation of contravening a red traffic light.  It was early in the morning and he had the whole of his family in his vehicle.  He was on his way to Holy Mass with his family.  Our client is an Orthodox Christian and had been fasting for 5 hours before heading to Holy Mass.  Unfortunately, our client also suffered with Diabetes and at the time he was asked to supply a specimen of br4eath, we believed that he may have suffered from low blood sugar levels.

We obtained a copy of our client’s file from his former solicitors, only to find out to our horror that they never gave our client detailed advice in relation to this matter and the only two pieces of work on the file seemed to relate to instructing a Barrister to represent our client at two separate hearing.

It was also apparent from the Court papers that our client had ultimately been convicted of failing to provide an evidential breath sample at the police station.  This is very important and you will see why in a minute.

When our client was stopped in relation to the contravention of the red traffic light offence, he completely admitted it.  He felt extremely shaky and stressed by the attitude of the police officers’ who stopped him and his family, who were present in his vehicle, became upset as well.

If you commit a moving traffic offence, the police have an automatic right to ask you for a breath sample.  It is not clear why the police chose to accept that right in this particular case.  Our client had not been drinking and there was nothing in the officer’s statement to suggest that he had any other concerns about whether or not our client had consumed alcohol.  In any event, the officer asked our client to provide a specimen of breath for analysis.  Our client felt breathless and panicky and was unable to comply.  He was then arrested and taken to the police station.  His whole family were left by the roadside.

On arrival at the police station, the Custody Sergeant refused to detain out client on the basis that she did not think that our client had actually consumed any alcohol.  He was therefore released immediately.  For some reason, the officer in the case then decided to charge our client with failing to supply an evidential specimen of breath for analysis at the police station – even though he was never asked!

The only offence that our client could have committed was failing to provide a specimen of breath for analysis at the roadside.  The distinction between the two offences is really important.  For the failing to supply a preliminary specimen at the roadside you can only be liable for penalty points.  There was no obligatory ban.  For failing to supply an evidential a specimen at the police station there is a minimum 12-month ban.

At Court, the CPS, the defence lawyers and the Barrister instructed by the defence lawyers to act on our client’s behalf, failed to spot that he had been charged with an offence that he blatantly could not have committed. The case was adjourned for trial from the first hearing date as none of the lawyers involved spotted this mistake.

The case was then listed for trial.  On the file we have obtained from the other defence lawyers, it was apparent that no medical evidence was obtained in order to show a reasonable excuse for failing to supply at the roadside but in any event, that is not what or client was charged with.  Again, none of the lawyers present at Court spotted that our client had been charged with the wrong charge and the Court then proceeded to convict our client.

As indicated above, he was sentenced to a 12-month ban and a hefty fine. Prior to the incident, our client was a man of impeccable character and he had a clean driving licence.

We listed the matter for an appeal and before making representations to the CPS on our client’s behalf, we liaised with the Court and the previous defence lawyers to make sure that at no stage was there any application by the CPS to amend the charge to the correct one.

All parties confirmed that no such application had been made.  We then made an application to the Court for our client’s disqualification to be lifted whilst the appeal was pending.  Despite the fact that it was clear from the papers that our client was convicted of an offence that he could not have committed, the Court refused to allow this. Most of the time, the Court will allow an application to suspend disqualification whilst the appeal is pending.

We then made detailed representations on behalf of our client to the CPS to try to persuade them that they did not stand a reasonable prospect of succeeding in opposing the appeal.  We showed the CPS that there is no means of amending a charge post-conviction.

After thinking long and hard, the CPS came back to us and confirmed that they agreed there was a mistake and that they would not oppose the appeal.  Our client’s appeal was allowed and his licence was reinstated by the DVLA.  We are now in the process of making an application to the Court for a Defendant’s Costs Order to reimburse our client’s reasonable legal expenses which we anticipate will be granted without any problems.

This was a terrible case and shows what can go wrong when clients are complacent and do not bother ton look through the paperwork carefully.  Obviously, the defence lawyers were working on behalf of our client initially and they are the ones who have fundamental responsibility to make sure that cases are handled properly and that the client gets the best possible outcome.  Having said that, all of the lawyers concerned made a big mistake by failing to spot that our client had been charged with an offence that he could never have committed.

Man Who Drives for a Living Gets Banned!

In this particular case, again we had to appeal to the Crown Court when our client had been convicted in the Magistrates Court before we were instructed to act on his behalf.  Again, we managed to persuade the CPS not to oppose the appeal.

The allegation related to an offence of failing to provide information.  Our client’s defence was that he had never received the request for information in the first place.  Unfortunately, our client’s wife who opened all the post intercepted the request for driver information.  She then passed the request for information to our client’s son.  The vehicle in question was actually owned by our client’s son and had simply been registered in our client’s father’s name.  The vehicle has now been re-registered.  The reason the car was registered in our client’s father’s name was because our client’s father had taken out the finance necessary for the purchase.  Our client made it very clear to his son on purchasing the vehicle that he did not want to have anything to do with the vehicle and that if any issues arose, then the son would have to deal with them.

After the request for information was passed to our client’s son, he then spoke to his friend who he knew had been driving at the time.  It was accepted in a witness statement by our client’s son’s friend that he was in fact the driver at the time and when our client’s son passed him the request for driver information, he then simply passed it onto his insurance company.  He obviously did not appreciate the correct course of action.

As a result of all of this, our client was summonsed to Court for failing to supply information and again our client’s wife intercepted the summons and again, passed it to her son telling him that he needed to sort the problem out.  Again, the summons was passed to the friend of our client’s son.

We appreciate the story behind all of this is quite complicated but you have to remember that at this stage, our client was completely oblivious in relation to the fact that there was an outstanding request for information.

Our client is a driver for a living and received 6 penalty points for this offence.  The 6 penalty points added to the 6 points that he already had on his licence and he was disqualified for six months, under the £totting up” rules.  As a result of this, his employment was terminated.  At the same time as liasing with the Court and the CPS, we liaised with our client’s employers to persuade them to keep his employment open whilst the matter was being appealed.  We also made an application to the Magistrates to suspend disqualification whilst the appeal was pending.  This was successful and meant that our client was able to keep on working whilst the appeal was being dealt with.

Ultimately, we persuaded the CPS not to oppose the appeal and we are now in the process of making an application to recover our client’s costs.

This is yet another example where an injustice has taken place.  Our client was poorly represented by the lawyers that he initially instructed to act on his behalf and they did not fight his corner robustly.

In both of the above cases, we were able to persuade the CPS not to oppose appeals.  In relation to the first case, the appeal was being heard at the Old Bailey.  The CPS can be perfectly reasonable as long as they understand the nature of the defence and they find the evidence compelling.  Excellent preparation and groundwork is of paramount importance in making these representations to the CPS if you are to stand any chance of avoiding a trial/retrial.

If you have a case where you feel that you have suffered an injustice or wrongly accused, then please contact us.