Tips for Unrepresented Defendants
You’ve got a letter through the post telling you of a court date you need to attend, but you’ve never been to court for anything before and don’t know what to expect? Read on for tips and tricks to get you through the process.
First tip, always get to court on time, 9:30 am for a 10 am start, or 1:30 pm for a 2 pm start. The risk of arriving late is that the court presses on without you (you’ll usually find a warning in your hearing date notice saying that the court can proceed with your matter in your absence). If the court does proceed without you then it wont get a chance to hear your side of the story and will decide based on information/evidence provided by the prosecutor or lawyer from the police, which is of course, likely to go completely against you.
Once you get to court on court, the court’s Legal Adviser will take you through the law. The Legal Adviser is not your lawyer or a duty solicitor, a Legal Adviser works for the court and is objective. The Legal Adviser should take you through the options available to you depending on your circumstances. If it is your first hearing, you will have the option to either plead guilty or not guilty. If you plead guilty, the court will move on to sentence you and you will get ‘credit’ for pleading guilty at the first available opportunity. This means you will get a discount for any fine imposed on you for the offence. The amount of fine and points to be imposed on your licence (if any) will be guided by what is known as the sentencing guidelines (http://sentencingcouncil.org.uk/) which is accessible for everyone. If you plead not guilty, a trial date will be set down on another date for the trial to take place.
There are some offences that are strict liability offences, like no insurance and speeding, meaning these offences are decided on consideration of fact and not the intention. So even if you thought you were insured, you will still be found guilty of the offence of no insurance if it is found that the company you got the insurance from is a fraudulent company and not a genuine insurance provider. For such offences, it is better to understand what the prosecutor or police lawyer is saying and admit the offence, unless there is a possibility a genuine mistake is made from their side and there is legitimate insurance or there is a possibility that the speeding camera was faulty which you will need to prove if challenging this.
Only after pleading guilty, do the options of putting forward exceptional hardship and/or arguing special reasons become available. If you stand to be disqualified, then another court date will be fixed to consider disqualification. After pleading guilty and before moving on to sentencing, you can put forward an exception hardship application, if this applies. This is where you will get the chance to explain how getting points on your licence or losing your licence will impact you financially. This usually has to be more than the hardship of losing one’s job. The court is more likely to accept exceptional hardship if this will impact other members of the family or community negatively as the court is unlikely to not want to punish others for a mistake made by you. In other words, the hardship has to be exceptional. Special reasons can be argued if there are special reasons as to why a licence should not be endorsed or disqualified. Special reasons are reasons like being a victim of fraud to a scam company for insurance, or misunderstanding the speed limit. These have to be mitigating or extenuating circumstances relating to the offence and cannot amount to a defence. Any arguments used for either exceptional hardship or special reasons cannot be used again within the next 3 years.
After pleading guilty and putting forward exceptional hardship and/or special reasons arguments comes sentencing. The court is guided by the sentencing guidelines which outlines what has to be imposed for specific offences. In case of imposing a fine, the sentencing guideline usually mentions a percentage of earnings to apply. This is where the court will ask about income and expenses to calculate the fine. If exceptional hardship or special reasons are found, the court can decide not to impose any fine or points or may impose fines but no points.
If you decide to plead not guilty, a trial date will be set. It is your responsibility and in your best interest to attend on the day. The court will be much harsher in its sentencing if you do not attend as it is then bound to sentence based on evidence provided by one side only. The trial date is the last chance to change your plea to guilty to still be considered for some discount on the sentencing of fines. For example, the costs to pay towards prosecution if pleading guilty at the first opportunity if £85, as opposed to £650 after trial, if found guilty (when imposing a fine, concomitant expenses are also imposed, including prosecution costs and victim surcharge, unless the court decides to waive these). Before trial, the Legal Adviser or Judge will usually take you through the law to help you make a decision on the best way to proceed. If you still decide to maintain your not guilty plea and proceed to trial, a tip to note is to always oppose an application of adjournment by the prosecutor. A prosecutor may ask the court for an adjournment when their witness to provide evidence is unavailable on the day. If you oppose the application for adjournment and the court does not grant the adjournment, the prosecutor will have to proceed with all the evidence they have, which can become a lot light without their witness. Under the circumstances, prosecutors can decide to do what is known as, ‘offer no evidence’, essentially leading to the case to fall through.
Other things to note in traffic court: 12 points on your licence leads to what is known as ‘totting up’, which will lead to losing one’s licence. Points generally stay on a licence for 3 years, depending on the offence, and are counted from offence date to offence date and not from conviction date. If you are invited to come back for a trial date, come back prepared to put forward any relevant evidence to challenge the offence charge. Evidence can be in the form of bank statements to show payments made, a witness to confirm what you are saying in your defense and any other relevant paperwork.
Information provided here is very much generalized and it is always advisable to seek expert legal advise (you can ask for an adjournment in court to get legal representation). I hope you found this helpful. Good luck in court!
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