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Originally Posted by punky
But you wern't being cautioned. You wern't arrested. Small speeding offenses (unless they are big enough to constitute dangerous or reckless driving) are civil offenses. You don't have a criminal record. Your right to silence on the grounds that it might incriminate yourself doesn't apply.
Of course, with free speech you have the right in life no to say anything you don't want to say, but if you exercise that right with a bill (which is essientially what you recieved), then you would still have to go through the collections process etc. The freedom to non-speech doesn't apply to everything.
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OK, I see your point. But if it's a civil offence, why are they quoting the Act? And also, my research says that the English Constitution is based partly on the Bill of Rights 1689. In there it states that "fines and forfeitures before conviction are illegal". In short, who has the right purely to issue me a fine in the first place? At the end of the day, the more I look into this the more it becomes clear that our "rights" are being chipped away.
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Originally Posted by punky
That's not true, but you had the rough end of the stick. The court gives you the oppotunity to plead innocent (and win, as in some cases) but unfortunately you wern't so lucky. The judge ruled against you, but you were unlucky as it seems the fixed penalty people negligently hinded your defence.
They are a bit touchy on the whole tying down the driver thing. It used to be a loophole that if you didn't respond with who was the driver was technically they couldn't do anything, but then the changed the rules that if the car owner couldn't identify the driver then the owner is responsible.
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The sad point is Punky, that the bench ruled that I hadn't made ENOUGH effort to ascertain the driver's identity. The prosecution was pathetic, and made several glaring errors. But still, I should have tried harder. This apparently includes the fact that I should have chased up the Fixed Penalty Office. I have to say, British Justice stinks.