Court summons not received fined and points added now going to trial!!

[sarahchad]

Please help!!!!

 

This is a long story so please bear with me.

 

My sister hired a car last year to move home.

 

She was on the hire agreement with my Dad as a free driver also.

 

My Dad was caught by a speed camera while moving her stuff to her new house in the hire car.

 

My sister put her current address on the hire agreement

The address she was moving from NOT to as she stayed there until two days afterwards.

She did not pay for mail forwarding but asked landlord to forward any mail.

 

A NIP was sent a few days afterwards to old address as this was provided by Enterprise hire company.

 

She changed address with DVLA three weeks after moving and recevied confirmation four weeks afterwards that they held her new address

 

Six months afterwards she hears from the DVLA that they have given her 6points and £900 fine for not attending court and providing driver details.

 

She obviously did not know as everything went to old address.

 

She went to court again as she explained she didn't know about it.

She was told she did not need legal representation

and just to take my Dad and explain he was driving.

 

They both went and my sister pleaded not guilt to speeding (As it was our Dad)

and not guilty to providing driver details as she felt she had changed her address in the correct time frame.

 

It is now going to trial and she has been told lots of different things

regarding whether she was right/not right to plead not guilty.

 

Apparently the hire company should have told her to provide a forwarding address??

is this correct?

The agreement doesn't give her the opportunity to do so.

 

Advice would be VERY most welcome as my sister and my Dad are both very upset

[ericsbrother]

As it is going to trial I would say that pleading not guilty with a written witness statement from father may well make the prosecutors withdraw and start again but that it not a certainty as the paperwork was most likely served on the correct address at the time and they may feel that the magistrate will go along with them.

[Raykay]

If the OP was unaware of the case, they should make a statutory declaration (s.14, Magistrates' Courts Act 1980) which should cancel the conviction and the matter referrered back to the prosecution for a decision to 're-commence proceedings.or not.

 

Make sure they deal with it properly, some courts have made the mistake of accepting a statutory declaration and dealing with it by re-opening the case (s.142 of the same act) instead of cancelling it.