No Legal Aid

Question:

I do not qualify for legal aid and have to represent myself in court. I really would appreciate help with the following…

1)Please could you give some guidance of court procedure when representing yourself in Magistrates the first instance.

Do I need to take any evidence that I may have to try to disprove that my standard of driving fell under that of a prudent driver?

2) Is it possible to access the insurance/garage report of the state of a vehicle after the accident without access to a solicitor?

3) If so, how do I go about this?

4) Is there any alternative to points/fines/disqualification that may be a possible solution?

5) Concerning the MOT, it was arranged by my parent and didn’t access the documents so did not know when MOT had to be renewed…anything I could do about this?

Emma Says:

If you have a look at the main menu of this site you will find a section called a step by step guide to representing yourself at court.

We do not offer legal aid.

You should be able to demand to see any accident/collision report if the prosecution intend to rely on it, or if its potentially beneficial to your defence. You need to approach the court and the crown prosecution service and seek disclosure in that regard.

The police are sometime willing to offer the driver improvement course as an alternative to prosecution but only if the accident was relatively minor.

You can only defend the MOT matter if you can prove that the car had an MOT at the time. If you cannot prove this then you will be convicted and you are better off pleading guilty. No MOT offences do not carry points.