Why should the car have been impounded?
According to the OP it's his car, insured for his son to drive and his son was there albeit not at the wheel when old bill turned up.
Presumably the MID shows son as insured etc, etc. Friend is not insured. Consequences for all involved are no doubt as outlined above.
So why not just get the wheels of the law turning to bring about consequences, let son get back in the car, and leave it at that?
What does the seizure achieve? Was the car totally without insurance? No, it wasn't, so I can't help thinking the seizure is just a bit of an abuse of power or a failure to exercise judgment.
(I sometimes wonder whether new posters who appear out of the blue aren't just trolling, but if that's the case I'll take the bait because it's an interesting new perspective on a matter canvassed on here before.)
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Something else ocurred to me: if this was to be dealt with by FPN wouldn't that have been issued on the spot?
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Two grounds for seizure possibly?
Driver was uninsured.
Driver did not have a driving Licence?
dvd
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Isn't this trespass too?
A supermarket carpark is for parking your car while shopping, not for lads to practice their driving in (or more likely practicing their skid control/donuts)
I believe the person who has allowed an uninsurred driver is just as guiltly in law.
MVP
a sufferer of yobs using a carpark opposite his house as a skid pad late at night after the pubs have shut
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There is no law against trespassing in the UK.
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There is no law against trespassing in the UK.
A L Hamsafar: How about this then
Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
Power to remove trespassers on land.
61.?(1) If the senior police officer present at the scene reasonably believes that two or more persons are trespassing on land and are present there with the common purpose of residing there for any period, that reasonable steps have been taken by or on behalf of the occupier to ask them to leave and ? .... etc etc.
(5) A constable in uniform who reasonably suspects that a person is committing an offence under this section may arrest him without a warrant.
The full Act is available on the Internet.
Edited by jbif on 25/11/2008 at 16:01
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There is no criminal law agaist civil trespass "to wander onto and belonging to another".
Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 quoted by jbif refers, as mentioned in the text, to residing on land belinging to another and suggests some sort of temporary or permenant intention to live thyere for a bit.
Think 'travelers', for which the legislation was desgined.
If memory serves me - needs a least an Inspector to authorise the power under 61(1) to be actioned after which any holder of the officer of constable (any rank of warranted police officer) may execute 61 (5)
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Does the MID show who else is insured on the vehicle or only that there is valid insurance for the car.
I still have to say that if one of my sons had claimed to be teaching a friend to park in a supermarket car park at 2am I'm not sure how much of that I would have believed but maybe I'm more cynical than most.
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sometimes wonder whether new posters who appear out of the blue
Yes, they somehow manage to find this web site, post some hazy account of some incident which is usually somewhat provocative, and then rarely reappear to update the forum on the outcome of their original complaint.
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Dwight Van Driver - both your possible reasons for seizure are theoretically correct, and the second may account for why no FPN was issued. However, can we see reasonable grounds for seizure when the son is present??
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None of us know what the "parking lesson" involved. The OP might not know either ;-) Yet.
I suspect they were not doing parking practice. The police will have had extra paperwork to get the car recovered etc. so will not have done it lightly. The OP needs to know the full facts on this as soon as possible from his son. There's not more to it I hope like failed breath tests or similar - I'm not jumping to any conclusion or judging but the police could have let the son drive....
... my stepson foolishly drove his car when it had a broken light and stopped by police. Had to produce a new MOT in two weeks (so car had to be fixed) and then nothing came of it. So there is something the OP possibly does not know....
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A bit of googling tells you all you need to know about Section 165 of the Road Traffic Act, which allows officers to seize the vehicle when it's being driven with no insurance or by someone without a licence. You see the officers on Traffic Cops using it all the time.
It's quite simple - if you're not insured or haven't got a licence, don't get behind the wheel if you don't want to lose the car.
(And yes, I'm another who is amused by "parking practice" at 2am. I don't think that's what it was called when I was at learning to drive age!)
Edited by PoloGirl on 25/11/2008 at 19:37
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Another avenue for seizure under Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002.
59 Vehicles used in manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance
(1) Where a constable in uniform has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle is being used on any occasion in a manner which?
(a) contravenes section 3 or 34 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (c. 52) (careless and inconsiderate driving and prohibition of off-road driving), and
(b) is causing, or is likely to cause, alarm, distress or annoyance to members of the public,
he shall have the powers set out in subsection (3).
(2) A constable in uniform shall also have the powers set out in subsection (3) where he has reasonable grounds for believing that a motor vehicle has been used on any occasion in a manner falling within subsection (1).
(3) Those powers are?
(a) power, if the motor vehicle is moving, to order the person driving it to stop the vehicle;
(b) power to seize and remove the motor vehicle;
(c) power, for the purposes of exercising a power falling within paragraph (a) or (b), to enter any premises on which he has reasonable grounds for believing the motor vehicle to be;
(d) power to use reasonable force, if necessary, in the exercise of any power conferred by any of paragraphs to (a) to (c).
(4) A constable shall not seize a motor vehicle in the exercise of the powers conferred on him by this section unless?
(a) he has warned the person appearing to him to be the person whose use falls within subsection (1) that he will seize it, if that use continues or is repeated; and
(b) it appears to him that the use has continued or been repeated after the the warning.
In other words if the driver of the vehicle is driving about like a prat and given a warning which they fail to heed then the vehicle can be seized. Could this be a probability in this case?.
Edited by Fullchat on 25/11/2008 at 22:22
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(snip policemen impounding vehicles) You see the officers on Traffic Cops using it all the time.
Oh dear. I am sad to see "what's on TV" as justification for anything (I assume that's a reference to a TV "light entertainment" programme - forgive me if I'm wrong).
It's quite simple - if you're not insured or haven't got a licence don't get behind the wheel if you don't want to lose the car.
Could be someone else's car.
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"Could be someone else's car. "
And the insured still has a chance to reclaim the car. In this instance I don't think all facts are known as the son could have been allowed to drive. This simply suggests the driving lesson was not parking as it brought the attention of the police.
If the car park at the supermarket was open then if someone wanted to use say the cash point or recycling point at 2am that would be fine and not worthy of police attention. And "parking" at 2am might be fine too. There is more to the original story than even the original poster might know.
Rob
Edited by rtj70 on 26/11/2008 at 10:42
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"Parking practice" at 0200 - that's a new one. Let's see if we can fit it into that quite tight space just there.
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"Parking practice" at 0200 - that's a new one. Let's see if we can fit
At 0200! - Something like Russ Swift and his handbrake turns into a parking slot.
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I was thinking more in terms of activities that might demand the use of the back seat...
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>Oh dear. I am sad to see "what's on TV" as justification for anything
I meant, you see them using that particular piece of legislation all the time, as in, it's nothing new, and shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone driving with no insurance that their car (or whoever it belongs to who has been stupid enough to let them drive it) gets taken away.
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I hope the original poster has got his car back and forgotten to update us - storage is charged per day.
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