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Also the SJNP notes say they sent a reminder i did definitely receive this if i did it would have prompted me to realise something was wrong and rectified.

No reminders are required by law. As a result of that, whether the police say they sent one or not, whether they actually did so or not and whether you received it or not has no bearing on the matter whatsoever. 

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I have to fill the form in online today so any more advice is gratefully received.

I have explained what to do in the third paragraph of my post #22. You don't need to do any more than that.

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i know you cannot say for certain but realistically by pleading the above what would be the most likely outcome be ?

is it still likely to be 3 points and £100 fine ? or am i likely to receive higher and more fees?

The most likely outcome is that your offer (to plead guilty to speeding if the FtP charge is dropped) will be accepted by the prosecutor. What happens next is for the court to decide. This "deal" is done every day in courts up and down the land and all court users (prosecutors, Magistrates and their legal advisors) are familiar with it. 

Although I said you could not ask to be sentenced at the fixed penalty level, that was incorrect. There is nothing to stop you asking (and if you do, you should mention it under "Mitigation" when you fill in your return). You can mention the circumstances you were in when you returned the request for driver's details and suggest that is why the error with the stamp may have occurred. 

My feeling, however, is that your request will be denied. If it is, you will face sentencing under the normal guidelines. These suggest a fine of half a week's net income (reduced by a third for your guilty plea.- so one third of a week's income). You will also be ordered to pay a "Victim Surcharge" of 40% of the fine and prosecution costs of around £90. You will also have three points imposed on your driving record.

You may be lucky and encounter a kindly Magistrate who settles on the fixed penalty equivalent or you may see something in between (with perhaps the prosecution costs left off). But the worst case is as in the previous paragraph.

There's no need to fret too much over this. The important thing is to make sure you plead not guilty to both charges and make it absolutely clear that you will plead guilty to speeding only if the other charge is dropped. You may be asked to attend court or it may be handled under the SJ procedure. I don't know how they work this matter in South Wales.

So, your response was not received by the SCP as you did not send it with a valid stamp.

Therefore, from my two option in post #14, the first option is the only one available to you, but you do not have the option of asking to be sentenced at the fixed penalty level as the reason the SCP did not receive your response was down to you. Here's a reminder of what to do:

Respond to the SJPN by pleading “Not Guilty” to both charges. In the “Reasons for pleading Not Guilty” box state that you are willing to plead guilty to the speeding charge providing, and only providing, the “Fail to Provide Driver's Details" (FtP) charge is dropped. This is a tried and tested method to deal with your problem and is almost always successful.

Before the pandemic it was necessary to attend court to do this "deal" because it needs the agreement of the police prosecutor.. During the pandemic courts made every effort to have as few  people as possible attend and they began doing this deal under the "Single Justice" procedure without the defendant's attendance. Some courts have carried this procedure on whilst others have reverted to a personal attendance being necessary.

If you are required to attend, your case will be taken out of the SJ procedure and you will be given a date for a hearing in the normal Magistrates' Court. If that is the way they do it in the area involved you will have to attend, see the prosecutor and offer your "deal" in person. 

Without seeing this envelope, document and sticker it is impossible to advise properly. However, just going on what you have told us, there are two ways you can deal with this:

!. The easy way. This has the lowest risk but the guarantee of a penalty for speeding. 

You can respond to the SJPN by pleading “Not Guilty” to both charges. In the “Reasons for pleading Not Guilty” box you can explain that you responded to the request for driver’s details but it was recently returned to you, seemingly not actioned. However, you are willing to plead guilty to the speeding charge providing, and only providing, the “Fail to Provide Driver's Details" (FtP) charge is dropped. You could also ask the court to consider sentencing you at the fixed penalty level (£100 and 3 points) as this prosecution seems to be the result of an administrative problem outside your control.

2. The not so easy way with higher risk. This could see you convicted of the FtP charge but has the possibility that you escape with no penalty whatsoever.

You can do the same – plead not guilty to both charges. If you go down this route the speeding charge cannot succeed as they have no evidence you were driving. This comes from your response to the request for driver’s details which the police say they have not got. You can mention in the “Reasons” box that you returned the request for driver’s details as required. You will then face a trial for the FtP charge and you can produced your response together with the envelope and sticker showing it had been returned to you. The risk with this is that if your defence fails you will be fined a week and a half’s net income, pay a “Victim Surcharge” of 40% of the fine, pay prosecution costs of around £650 and have six points together with an endorsement code (MS90) which will see your insurance premiums rocket.

Do not under any circumstances plead guilty until we know what we are dealing with. It's a sure way to 9 points.

The tried and tested way to handle this is to plead not guilty to both charges and offer to plead guilty to speeding provided the "Fail to give information" charge is dropped. But I am concerned about this "ticket refused" sticker. I've never heard of this before. A "ticket" is not a term used in connection with speeding offences.

There seems a distinct possibility that your response was received by the police but one thing worries me: I've never heard of a sticker being placed on a response and it being returned "Return to Sender". t's just not what ticket offices do. If you could post a picture of this document and the sticker it might help. 

If you can show the response was received you may have a defence to the "Fail to Provide" charge (provided you completed your response properly).

If the police are saying you did not respond they cannot succeed with a speeding charge (as they have no evidence you were driving). But if you did not respond, who put the sticker on the document and sent it back yo you?

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. I was pulled up at the side of the road...

Can you elaborate a little? Were you parked with the engine off or had you just stopped? Please tell is exactly what you were doing.

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they have all my license details they had them from the start,

Indeed they may have. 

But you will be required to submit them again when you accept the fixed penalty. The instructions will be with the offer. It's up to you whether you want to ignore those instructions or say something like "you already have them." But if you do, the offer will be withdrawn and your case will move to court action where, as I said, the cost will be considerably greater. It's your choice but I mentioned it so as to avoid you any further trouble.

Believe me, I know about these things.

They are no doing what they like; they are doing what they have to.

Whoever is to blame for this makes no difference. It could be 100% down to the ticket office (though it isn't) and they would still not offer you a course. They must begin a prosecution in June (which is their only alternative if you fail to complete the course). They are not sitting in their office with just your case before them, eagerly awaiting your completion of the course (or not) so that they can either close your case or prosecute you. They have a system which is designed to keep all the (many) cases they have moving.

As I said, you have been lucky. The normal reaction when they receive an unsigned response is to go straight to prosecution. It's unfortunate that you have been on the wrong end of this but it emphasises the need to get everything absolutely right first time when dealing with such matters (hence my warning to submit your licence details when accepting the fixed penalty)..

So not entirely down to the ticket office, then.

In fact you have been quite fortunate. The "Section 172" response provides the evidence the police need to prove that you were driving if they wish to prosecute you in court.

In England and Wales there is a legal precedent which has determined that an unsigned s172 response does not meet the requirements of that part of the RTA. In effect, an unsigned response is equivalent to no response at all. (This precedent is not recognised in Scotland and there is a strategy to "go unsigned" to avoid conviction).

When they receive an unsigned response the police are perfectly entitled to prosecute you for "Failing to provide drivers details" and they more often than not do. This offence carries six points, a hefty fine and insurance grief for up to five years. So you got lucky.

The situation now is that the deadline for accepting a course is passed. Four months is the absolute maximum, with some forces cutting it back to as little as three months from the date of the offence. The police will not extend this because if you fail to complete the course before six months has elapsed, they can no longer prosecute you. They can only begin proceedings up to the corresponding date in June (i.e. if the offence was December 10th, they have until June 10th to begin proceedings).

You will gain nothing by taking this to court. On the contrary you have a lot to lose. Courses are offered entirely at the discretion of the police, you have no right to one and the court has no powers to order one. Presumably you have been offered a fixed penalty of £100 and 3 points. If you are sentenced in court it will cost you at least three times that, possibly more (depending on your speed and your income).

My advice: accept the fixed penalty and do it soon as there is a deadline for that as well and if you allow it to pass your matter will be taken to court anyway.

Do not forget to submit your driving licence details as instructed when accepting the offer. If you fail to do so the police will have no time left to remind you (and they don't usually send reminders for this anyway) and, again, your case will end up in court.

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Yes baliffs for magistrates warrants can force entry with a locksmith.

Are you sure about that?

What would this "magistrates warrant" be for?

Bear in mind that magistrates do not issue "warrants of control" and in any case a warrant of control does not authorise forcible entry. .

Unpaid fines imposed for criminal matters are often passed to bailiffs to attempt enforcement, but they do not have right of forced entry.

The ultimate sanction for unpaid fines imposed in the magistrates' court is a custodial sentence in lieu of the fine.  

Since you were stopped at the time there is no requirement for the police give you anything there and then or to send you anything before they have decided how to deal with the offence. 

They have three choices:

1. Offer you a course
2. Offer you a fixed penalty (£100 and three points)
3. Prosecute you in court 

The only option that has a formal time limit is (3). They must begin court proceedings within six months of the date of the alleged offence. Options (1) and (2) have no time limit but since the only alternative the police have if you decline those offers is (3) they will not usually offer a course beyond three months from the date of the offence and will not usually offer a fixed penalty beyond four months from that date. This is so as to allow time for the driver to accept and comply with their offer and to give them the time to go to option (3) if he declines or ignores it. 

Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, the action they take will usually be in accordance with the National Police Chiefs' Council's guidance on speeding enforcement. In a 40mph limit this is as follows

• Up to 45mph - no action.
• Between 46mph and 53mph - offer a course
• Between 54mph and 65mph - offer a fixed penalty
• Over 65mph - prosecution in court

So you can see that 54mph should see you offered a fixed penalty.

Three weeks is not overly long for a fixed penalty offer to arrive. As well as that, there has been Easter in that period which will have slowed things down a bit. However, I would suggest that if it gets to about two months from the offence date and you have still heard nohing, I would contact the ticket office for the area where you were stopped to see if anything has been sent to you.

Of course this raises the danger that you might be "stirring the hornets' nest". But in all honesty, if the police have decided to take no action, you jogging their memory should not really influence them. The bigger danger, IMHO, is that your fixed penalty offer may have been sent but lost and if you do not respond it will lapse. This will see the police revert to option (3) above.

Whilst there is a mechanism in these circumstances  to persuade the court to sentence you at the fixed penalty level (rather than in accordance with the normal guidelines which will see a harsher penalty), it relies on them believing you when you say you did not received an offer. In any case it is aggravation you could well do without so for the sake of a phone call, I'd enquire if it was me. 

I think I've answered all your questions but if I can help further just let me know. Just a tip - if you are offered a fixed penalty be sure to submit your driving licence details as instructed. I've seen lots of instances where a driver has not done this. There will be no reminder and no second chance; your £100 will be refunded and the police will prosecute you through the courts.

I think you need to tell us what actually happened.

Your original post gives the impression that you were taken to court for a speeding offence. But you go on to say that you received no paperwork. So you could not have been summonsed for a speeding offence because the police had no evidence that you (or anybody else) was driving (and it seems you were not anyway).

You were probably summonsed (or more likely received a Single Justice Procedure Notice) for "failing to provide the driver's details." You would not normally be banned for this offence if you were convicted - it carries six points. So did you have any earlier points which meant you were liable to a "totting up" ban? 

If you were originally convicted (as it seems you might have been) how was that conviction set aside? Did you perform a Statutory Declaration?

There is simply too much missing for any meaningful help to be given. It seems as if there may have been an error by the DVLA but before you consider suing those idiots until the cows come home, you need to explain exactly what has happened.

To be clear, what you will be attending is not a "Single Justice" court. Nobody can attend a SJ hearing.

I haven't read all of this but I assume at some point you returned the Single Justice Procedure Notice pleading guilty and asking to attend court. This means your case is now not being handled under the SJ procedure and instead will be heard in the normal Magistrates' court.

Thanks for letting us know.

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They said the second NIP would be cancelled and a replacement may be sent out - so I guess it's possible we hear something else. 

A NIP served beyond 14 days after the date of the alleged offence would not comply with Section 1 of the Road Traffic Offenders' Act, so no prosecution could succeed.

The police know this but it is not unheard of for them to offer a fixed penalty in such circumstances, hoping the recipient is daft enough to accept it.

But note there would still be an obligation to respond to the accompanying "request for driver's details."

A "Totting Uo" ban removes all points from your record.

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...and ofcourse the officers will just side with each other no doubt there but is it purely based on my story against theirs or will the judge ask for some kind of prove to show I was guilty?

“Proof” is whatever the court finds as proof. The testimony of the two officers is evidence and if, based on that evidence, the court is sure, beyond reasonable doubt that the offence was committed, you will be convicted. There is a popular misunderstanding that there needs to be photographic evidence to support offences of this kind. There need not. Testimony from eye witnesses is often sufficient. You need to take a step back from the alleged persecution you say you have suffered (a court will not be interested in that) and concentrate solely on the offence with which (I assume) you will face.

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I think it will all come down to phone use however my argument is the text was sent handsfree and if theres any evidence with their camera etc to prove they saw me on the phone then show it.

You need to understand the elements of the offence. If the phone must be held at some point to undertake its functions it is considered to be “hand held” (whether you were holding it or not). There is little doubt that a court will find your phone, as you have described it, to be hand held. There is also little doubt that you were using it. Some of the things you have said here simply compound your problems. For example:

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“I have the satnav up on the phone but the phones on the seat as you can see.”

What I think you are missing here is that you do not have to be holding the phone to be “using” it. It’s the design of the device itself which determines whether it is “hand held” (as I explained in my first post). If it is a hand held device, then using it as a satnav on the passenger seat would see an offence committed. The revised mobile phone legislation (introduced January 2022) makes doing virtually anything with a hand-held device into an offence.

Of course it’s your decision whether to defend this in court. Failure (apart from the points) will be expensive. You will pay a fine of at least half a week’s net income, a “Victim Surcharge” of 40% of that fine and prosecution costs which will be at least £620. No change out of £1k for most people. Your points situation is unfortunate. Firstly it means you cannot accept a fixed penalty even if was offered and you wanted to accept it as the six points will indeed see you liable to a six month “totting up” ban. So your case will be heard in court. If you are convicted you can only avoid disqualification if you can convince the court that “Exceptional Hardship” will be suffered by you or others if you are banned.

Let me know if I can help further.
 

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see if you get a NIP in the post first.

You won't get a NIP for two reasons:

1. A NIP is only required if the driver was not stopped and warned at the time that a prosecution is being considered.

2. Mobile phone offences do not require a NIP in any circumstances.

You may, however, get an offer of a fixed penalty (£300 and six points).

You are on a sticky wicket here. If you look at the legislation (Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986, Reg. 110) it says this:

For the purposes of this regulation—

(a)a mobile telephone or other device is to be treated as hand-held if it is, or must be, held at some point during the course of making or receiving a call or performing any other interactive communication function; [my emphasis]

You said that your phone was on the passenger seat. It is hard, therefore, to imagine that it need not be "....held at some point during the course of making or receiving a call or performing any other interactive communication function." But I think you have a bigger problem than that. You will face testimony from two police officers who will both say they saw you using the phone. They have nothing to gain by perjuring themselves (and frankly, catching drivers using mobile phones is akin to shooting fish in a barrel). Your task will be to persuade the court they were both mistaken. On your own admission, you were using the phone and, by the definition provided in the legislation, it is not a hands-free phone. 

I would say you face an uphill struggle.

As an aside:

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told then I didn't realise and can do the tax straight away to prevent the car being towed away,

Why would you worry about tax? Your trade plates would have overcome the need for you to tax the car (provided you were using them in accordance with their conditions). They would not, however, have provided you with insurance cover. Nor would they have absolved the Registered Keeper (if any) from ensuring continuous cover was in place as required by s144A of the RTA.

A bit late on parade here (I've been away).

Magistrates have guidance that suggests where an offence warrants either a (discretionary) ban or points, and points would make the driver either liable to a "totting up" ban (12 points within three years) or revocation of a licence under the New Drivers' legislation (six points within two years of passing his first test) then points should be imposed.

The purpose of the New Drivers' legislation is to provide a deterrent to new drivers from offending. To impose a ban where one would not otherwise be considered (e.g. in the circumstances you describe) would be to deliberately circumvent the New Drivers' legislation and so frustrate the will of Parliament. There is no justification for doing so and I would be extremely surprised if your son's request was sucessful.

The worst that can happen, should you continue to ignore this, is that you will be convicted and sentenced in your absence.

What the sentence may be is a little difficult to say as you have not told us what offence you have been charged with. There are a number of possibilities, including offences under TfL bylaws up to fraud (a criminal offence which can carry a custodial sentence). You will be informed by post (at the same address as the one you gave) and if you ignore that, enforcement action will be taken against you. This may see bailiffs or enforcement officers attempting to enforce any financial penalties and may ultimately end in your arrest (again, depending on the sentenced imposed).

TfL take the abuse of staff passes very seriously and rarely offer out-of-court settlements. In any case the time for that has long passed and since you seem intent on trying to evade the matter entirely and are  unwilling to engage with them anyway, the likelihood of it happening now is even smaller. 

Are you sure it's a summons? They are rarely used these days. More likely to be a "Single Justice Procedure Notice."

But it doesn't matter. What you are considering is unwise. Anybody sending documents associated with legal proceedings has only to prove they were sent to the recipient's last known address. So long as they do that it is deemed "served". As for the name discrepancy, where did TfL get your name from?

Hiding away from these things is never a good idea.

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I still have not received anything from the West Yorkshire court System, is this normal behaviour?

If the offence was in mid-October, the police have until the corresponding date in mid-April to begin proceedings. In many areas they take all of that time, so you may have a little time to wait yet.

BTW, you will not get banned for 56 days.

The  top "Band of seriousness" under the old sentencing guidelines (pre-April 2017) had an upper limit of 110mph.

It was only for speeds in excess of that where the "grossly excessive" phrase came into play.

With just a few mph lower than 109 (say up to about 104 or 105) six points is almost invariably the outcome.

If you are banned I would be surprised to see one of more than 21 days, and very surprised if it exceeded 28 days.

Deleted. (I hadn't read page 2)

Sorry, I didn’t quite get a handle on where this happened earlier.

I know the A31 quite well too but I can’t quite gather the details of your route. The B3001 meets the A31 south of the Hogs Back (at Farnham, in fact) and you would have to drive north (back towards the A3) to get to the Hogs Back, but you said you were driving southbound before you turned round. Ironically, if you were travelling southbound there and the satnav told you to turn round, you were being directed back to the A3 and precisely the area you were trying to avoid. Which is another indication of the perils of relying on satnavs. But it doesn’t really matter as far as your problem goes.

There is certainly one stretch of the A31 across the Hogs Back (in the vicinity of the Hogs Back Hotel) where the two carriageways are separated as you describe. I don’t know how you came to be on the southbound carriageway at that stretch – it makes no sense to me at all. But if that’s where you were, I agree that parts of the road there may, taken in isolation, give the impression of being  single carriageway. I imagine you were somewhere around here:

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@51.226533,-0.714861,287.57h,-5.42p,0z,I0xw6LgdEVIp9yCUkj_yKQ

As I said, I don’t know where exactly you might have joined the A31 southbound to approach the Hogs Back (the A31 begins a few miles further north, where it splits from the A3). But certainly at this point (north of the Hogs Back) it is clearly a dual carriageway:

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@51.226745,-0.695772,287.57h,-5.42p,0.42z,05spBYvtERib55HdiW5Pag

If you follow the GSV from there you will come to the stretch where I believe you turned round. But there is no indication, between those two points, that the road has become a two way single  carriageway. A little further on there is a junction with the road to Ash Green and it is clear at that point that the road is two lanes in the same direction (by virtue of the arrows in the road):

https://www.instantstreetview.com/@51.226733,-0.709591,287.57h,-5.42p,0z,cJ0qtfiZgThCa_GzPScb9A

A little further still (just after the “Hotel” signpost on the left) the road opens out again and the opposite carriageway becomes clearly visible. 

I drive that stretch quite often and have done so both during the day and at night and from my perspective there is absolutely no reason to believe the carriageway has reverted to both way running. As well as that, as you can see from the GSV shots, the road is quite narrow there and I was astonished to learn that you performed a U-turn in the dark on that stretch. 

If you do return to the scene, see if you can find any indication as you travel southbound that the road becomes a single carriageway. I’m sure you won’t. If you take this matter to court it will be tried in a Magistrates’ Court local to that area and the Magistrates will very likely to be aware of the road’s layout.

My view remains the same. You should not have performed a U-turn at that location and if the area was unfamiliar, you should have waited until a more suitable location to turn round was available. If you are offered a fixed penalty I should grab it with both hands as it is the best offer you will get. If it goes to court, I would recommend a guilty plea with as little said about why and where you turned round as possible.

Careless Driving is a very “subjective” offence, but the legislation says simply that if your driving falls “below that expected of a competent and careful driver” then you are guilty. Of course competent and careful drivers do not drive the wrong way on a dual carriageway.

The first judgement will come from the police. They have the option of offering you a course or fixed penalty (£100 and three points). Unlike speeding (where the offer of an out-of-court disposal (OOCD) is quite prescriptive based on the limit and excess speed) careless driving is not so clear cut and is very much judged on a case-by-case basis. However, the police use some general guidance and I I believe their current rule is that to qualify for an OOCD the incident there must be:

• no victims
• no collisions
• no public complaint about the driving.
• the incident must be observed by officers (rather than only the public)

In that respect it seems your incident may qualify. However, driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway is bordering on dangerous driving, as intimated by the officer.  Although there were no victims and no collisions this was more luck than judgement and probably more down to the good fortune that the police intercepted you before any harm was done. If there had been any other vehicles on your carriageway there would almost certainly have been a collision and the consequences of what would have been a head-on smash could have been catastrophic.

Your explanation of the event does little to mitigate the offence. I know you are not blaming the satnav instructions as such but you are giving them quite a bit of weight:

“…therefore I don't think following it's instruction was literally an act of carelessness or recklessness on my part.”

I would disagree. Following its instructions unquestionably is careless. This is especially so in the circumstances you describe. I know Junction 10 on the M25 very well. There have been major works in progress for some months and they are not due for completion until summer 2025. The junction is being completely remodelled and the new layout will cover a much larger area than the current arrangements. Different sections are often closed at night with diversions such as you encountered and it is impossible for satnav systems to be updated with the constantly changing relevant information. More than that, there is adequate signage from each of the four directions approaching the junction; there are narrow lanes and a restricted speed limit throughout. It is an extensive site involving major work. Quite simply, that vicinity – especially if you are re-routed because of road closures - it is not a place to depend on a satnav. You have to look out of the window. In my view, what you are saying actually aggravates the offence. Despite the obvious and apparent hazards, you still expected the satnav to see you safely through this major junction, even when it provided an instruction that was clearly inappropriate.

For all these reasons I would be surprised if the police offered you an OOCD. If they don’t, you will be prosecuted in court and here are the Magistrates’ Sentencing Guidelines for the offence:

https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/careless-driving-drive-without-due-care-and-attention-revised-2017/

You will see from that guidance that your offence does not seem to exhibit either “Higher Culpability “ or “Greater Harm” and so should be placed in the lowest category of seriousness. However, you should also note this:

“Where an offence does not fall squarely into a category, individual factors may require a degree of weighting before making an overall assessment and determining the appropriate offence category.”

You might argue that your offence falls squarely into Category 3. However, the guidance is exactly that and I have little doubt that if Magistrates hear that you ended up driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway at 1am and only stopped when intercepted by the police, they will almost certainly add their own “weighting” to the offence and will probably place it in Category 2. This will see five or six points and a fine of one week’s income (reduced by a third if you plead guilty).

"Also if anybody's got any idea of whether my observations about the sat navs inconsistent behaviour regarding turning people round on dual carriageways  ( ie using roundabouts on most of them but not this specific one), would be accepted as extenuating circumstances, - any opinions or comments from people, would be much appreciated."

The ideas I have are quite straightforward – they are not to be relied upon. The ultimate responsibility for his driving standards and any outcome resulting from them rests solely with the driver. This is especially so in the circumstances you describe, where it is clear (or at least should be clear to a competent and careful driver) that a satnav may not have all the most up to date information required. Any attempt to use the satnav’s instructions as mitigation will simply demonstrate to a court that the driver was not paying sufficient attention to his surroundings.

Of course all this is only my view, based on the brief description you provided. It would be helpful if you informed us of the outcome, to add to the forums knowledge base.

And I've just noticed your remarks about the letter. It should give you details of the alleged offence (citing the legislation), how to pay the penalty (should that be your choice) and how to appeal (either to an arbitrator if it is appropriate or in the Magistrates' Court).

Any chance you could post a redacted copy on here?

Unfortunately, as I said in my first reply, there is not a simple answer to the definition of littering.

If the allegation is “littering” and it’s not being made under railway bylaws, then I suspect it is under s87 of the Environmental Protection Act. This is here:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/section/87

There is an interesting report by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. It’s a lengthy tome, but the relevant passage begins on page 14:

https://www.cpre.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CPRE-Litter-Law-Report.pdf

There are a number of points you could take on board:

The High Court tried to define litter in the case of Westminster City Council v. Riding. The court took an approach based on the term’s natural or ordinary meaning, stating that the word ‘litter’ in the EPA 1990:

‘should be given its natural meaning of miscellaneous rubbish left lying about. Rubbish left lying about can consist of all manner of things including domestic household waste, commercial waste, street waste and no doubt other waste not falling within such description’.

It goes on to mention “Exclusions” and in particular this:

There are several categories of rubbish, all of which may also be regarded as a social problem, but, nonetheless, do not fall within the legal definition of ‘litter’ – the definition is relevant here for litter authorities, whose role it is to clear such waste. Categories of rubbish, as distinguished from litter, include: 

Detritus ‘comprises small, broken down particles of synthetic and natural materials, including dust, mud, soil, grit, gravel, stones, rotted leaf and vegetable residues, and fragments of twigs, glass, plastic and other finely divided materials. Leaf and blossom falls are to be regarded as detritus once they have substantially lost their structure and have become mushy or fragmented’.

There is certainly an argument to be made that phlegm might fall into this category. It is interesting to note that dog fouling is specifically excluded from the litter laws. It has its own separate legislation and a person suspected of allowing a dog to foul the footpath or road cannot be convicted under the littering legislation. 

But I think more important from your son’s current situation (having been issued with a fixed penalty) is the guidance that DEFRA issued in 2015 to enforcement officers. It clearly states that there should be no fixed penalty notice (FPN) where the following circumstances apply:

• Where it is accidental littering, for example if something falls from someone’s pocket
• it’s not in the public interest to do so;
• the offender is vulnerable;
• the offence is trivial

Of course none of these fit your son’s circumstances precisely, but they give you a flavour of how the law is likely to be interpreted. Furthermore, although guidance is not law, it remains persuasive to those making decisions.

Have a read of the CPRE’s paper down to about page 20 to see more details.

If I were you I would firstly try to engage with the LA emphasising that you do not consider that your son has committed a littering offence at all. But also add details about his condition, his vulnerability and the triviality of his action. I would try to make an analogy with someone vomiting on the pavement. It’s unpleasant, it’s would be nice if nobody did it, but occasionally it’s going to happen. Is it “littering”? I can’t see a court agreeing that it is and nothing I have found supports it.I think there is a very strong link between that and your son's actions. I have an idea that, when all the circumstances are taken into account, the LA will not run with this. The hurdle you must clear is to get it examined by somebody who knows what they are talking about as, once again without being unkind, many LA employees are poorly trained in such matters.  

Hope this helps. Do let us know how it goes as it helps us when advising others.