I am told I may be able to persuade the police to drop failing to inform if I plead guilty to speeding but I am not sure how to go aobut this.
Yes, you should be able to do this providing you were the driver at the time and everything else is straightforward. You do not need a solicitor.
First of all, have a look at your court papers. You should have a “Single Justice Procedure Notice” (SJPN). That will set out the charge(s) you face. With any luck you should have been charged with both the “Failure to Provide” (FtP) offence and speeding. If that is so, it should be fairly straightforward.
You must respond to the SJPN within the time allowed and you have three choices of response:
1. You can plead guilty and allow the case to be dealt with by under the Single Justice Procedure.
2. You can plead guilty and ask for a personal hearing in the normal Magistrates’ Court.
3.You can plead Not Guilty.
Obviously option 3 is out. The procedure you need to adopt is to ask the prosecutor to kindly drop the FtP charge on the understanding that you will plead guilty to the speeding offence. This a tried and tested practice that takes place in courts up and down the land every day. All court users (Prosecutors, the Magistrates and their Legal Advisors) are familiar with it. It is successful almost without fail, provided everything is straightforward.
It used to be necessary to attend court and speak to the prosecutor in person to do this (which meant you would need to go for option 2 as you cannot attend a Single Justice hearing). However, during the pandemic, most courts allowed defendants to make this “deal” under the SJ procedure. The Magistrates’ Legal Advisors had an agreement with the local police prosecutors allowing them to do this. In many areas this has persisted and has become “business as usual”. So my recommendation would be to return your SJPN, selecting option 1. You should plead Not Guilty to both charges but make it clear in your response that you will plead guilty to speeding if, and only if, the FtP charge is dropped.
If the court will not accept this they should let you know. The main purpose of entering not guilty pleas to both offences is that you cannot be convicted unless you are given the opportunity to attend court to defend the charges. As well as that, facing a ban if you get six points for FtP is actually to your advantage. A SJ will not ban you in your absence and if that route is chosen your case will be put over for a hearing in the normal Magistrates’ Court. You will then be given the opportunity to attend, when you can suggest the deal in person.
Have a look at your paperwork and see what it says. This “deal” is normally only available for those who are charged with both offences. There is a way it might be undertaken if you are only charged with FtP, but it is more complex and does not always succeed.
The above answer is OK as far as it goes. However, I have a suspicion that your reply was not received at all. It is unusual for the police to prosecute the offence when the deadline has been missed by a short period. The speeding offence must have been committed a few days before 16th May and the FtP offence was not committed until 28 days after the request for driver's details was served on you (so, on 12th June according to your court paperwork). By your timeline, you were away for a week or so in early June and delayed your response by a few days after your return because of the fire problem. Even if you had not responded until early July, I doubt the police would have taken action for FtP but simply processed the speeding charge.
Edited by Middleman on 08/11/2022 at 16:53
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