The chances are you were caught for a camera enforceable offence around 2001 and had not kept your address up to date. A Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) would have been sent along with a request for information to identify the driver. After a month a further request would heve been sent and if that did not get a response they would normally summons you under Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 for failing to furnish them with information, an offence that at the time carried 3 points. Again had you failed to respond it is possible you could have been found guilty in your absence and penalty points would have been incurred.

The DVLA would have continued to write to you eventually stating that if your licence was not surrendered they would revoke it. They normally will not revoke it immediately - you get a year before they do so. Had you renewed or updated your licence within this time the points would have been applied when it was returned to you and that would be the end of it.

The normal practice with a licence being revoked in these circumstqances is that you can regain your licence but you have to submit it. The formal revocation is normally lifted at the time the penalty points would have come off - but you are required to apply for a reissue.

The charges are thus very likey to be "driving without a valid licence" which carries three penalty points. Normally the police will lift the vehicle of an unlicenced driver to prevent them from continuing to use it. Arguably they would fail in their duty of care to other road users if they did not do so.

There is a possibility they could also charge you for driving without insurance as if there was no valid licence there cannot be valid insurance, but my feeling is that as long as there was a policy on the vehicle that offence is probably beatable with a good Special Reasons argument - that is if they bring it forward. It may be that the "no licence" argument can be beaten on the same grounds but I would need to speak to you about that and an open forum is not a good place to discuss the best tactics for dealing with this as there is also the mystery of 2008 as it would seem to me very likely that you had a valid licence if you submitted your licence in 2008 and had it returned with points attached. It could be that any prosecution case would fall on that issue.

I need to get further details and the best way of doing so is on the phone. I can ask a solicitor colleague to contact you to arrange a free advice call to discuss your various options and how to play this.

If you send me your contact details including an email address and phone number to lucy.bonhamcarter@qualityanswers.co.uk I can arrange for a mutually convenient time for a consultation.