OUR SERVICES

Telephone Advice

We appreciate that receiving communication that you are likely to be prosecuted or have been offered a Fixed Penalty can be very stressful. We are accordingly able to arrange initial telephone advice consultations at short notice. Such calls will be dealt with by an experienced lawyer. This is not a call centre service.

Pre-Prosecution

If there is to be a prosecution the police are obliged to serve upon you a Notice of Intended Prosecution. At this stage, it is crucial to seek advice as to your position and if there is a possible challenge to the matter, making it at that time could in the right circumstances, avoid a prosecution. Similarly it is vital to seek advice where a Notice has been served under a Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act, requiring details of a driver, as again in certain cases, the appropriate representations may lead to a decision not to prosecute. We can provide expert advice and where necessary draft appropriate responses

Representation at trial

Where a summons has been issued requiring a person to attend at Court and the matter is to be defended, then a trial will have to take place. There are three key ingredients to success at trial. They are as follows:

Expert and comprehensive knowledge of not only road traffic law, but law of evidence and Court procedures.

Diligent and proactive case preparation which may include, tracing and taking witness statements, challenging Prosecution evidence, and obtaining appropriate expert reports on issues relevant to the case.

Excellent advocacy by an experienced and tactically astute Advocate.

Mitigation

There will be cases where it will not be possible to avoid a guilty plea. In those cases, the key then becomes damage limitation. In such cases the objectives will nevertheless remain important and include avoiding a disqualification where possible, keeping penalty points down to the lowest level, keeping financial penalties down to the lowest level and in the more serious cases, avoiding prison sentences.

Where a guilty plea is necessary, comprehensive mitigation will be prepared. If necessary obtaining witness statements, testimonials, evidence of hardship and even medical evidence, where appropriate.

Special reasons and mitigating circumstances

In some cases where a person has pleaded guilty or stands convicted, it is possible to avoid endorsements to a driving licence with penalty points, or a disqualification, if special reasons exist. These are circumstances connected to the offence which effectively meant that there was an exceptional situation which caused the commission of the offence to arise and in those circumstances, it would be appropriate not to endorse the licence or to disqualify from driving.

We will advise if such circumstances arise and forward full arguments supported by evidence.

In other cases where special reasons do not apply there might be exceptional circumstances so as not to disqualify a person from driving.

In such cases there would have to be exceptional hardship.

This usually means that there is something that goes beyond the hardship that the average person may have to endure as a result of the loss of their licence.

In appropriate cases we will explore the prospects of such an argument being sustainable, fully prepare for the same by obtaining the appropriate evidence and present the argument at Court.

Legal arguments

It may be possible to successfully mount a challenge to a case based on a legal argument. This may arise due to failures to follow the correct procedures either in the investigation of the matter, or the issuing of the summons, or alternatively, as regards the Court procedures. Our expertise in this area means we are able to identify the possibility of such arguments and present them before the Court.

Alcohol reading challenges

In drink driving cases there can sometimes be an acceptance that the Crown’s position as regards levels of alcohol must be right. In the majority of cases that will be correct, but in some cases grounds can arise for being able to challenge this reading. We will ensure that the matter is considered by leading experts in the field who will prepare a report and if necessary attend Court and give evidence on your behalf.

Speed camera challenges

There are different kinds of speed camera devices employed by the police throughout the country; however in respect of each there have been occasions when there have been inaccuracies in the reading. We have experience in effectively challenging prosecution evidence of such readings and obtaining the appropriate expert evidence and supporting this with expert legal argument.