Great day, NIP and Court date.

[BigD]

I was done in 2010. At the time in the patrol car I was being done with dangerous driving however when the summons came in it was careless which I was glad about. Anyway it was tailgating then speeding at 98 whilst undertaking and speeding off into the distance outwith the range of the laser gun they had as the charge. Took a while to go through court about 8 months and I said from the start I'd take the speeding but not the other stuff. Had a lawyer and he was able to speak to the fiscal before going in front of the man with the wig and reached an agreement that I'd plead guilty to the speeding. So when I went in front of the judge I was merely sentenced with speeding at 98 on a motorway (everything else was dropped) so only got 3 points and £200 fine so minimal really. Annoyingly still got a CD30 on my license but this made a very minimal difference to my insurance policies.

I do think it's worth having representation if only to bargain behind the scenes as it were.

The judge was very fair IMO.

Hope you get some reduction.

[Peter]

As per Donald, I got caught at 102 and got a local lawyer to assist. He was able to strike a deal with the PF prior to the case, these guys have access and the ability to broker which really surprised me..
Worth having a chat with an Oban lawyer if you haven't already..

Good luck with it Tut, fingers crossed for you..

[tut]

Now that I have breathing space Pete, I may look into an Oban lawer. With the medical problems I can probably spin it out for a while to get me closer to Winter, but retribution must.

I think that my best chance is to appear in Court myself, what you see is what you get, it has worked well in the past and could again.

tut

[tut]

Following advice received from friends on here including Solicitors and my BiB, I have appointed a Solicitor, Jane Thompson, from DM Mackinnon in Oban, and had a long conversation with her this morning.

The first thing she did was to contact the PF to sort out the cock ups that they have achieved so far. On advice from the Sheriffs Court in Oban after I could not attend the hearing on the 22nd but intended to plead guilty, I sent in the completed form then received a letter saying that as I had pleaded not guilty they had set an Intermediate Diet on Sept 16th, and if it was not disposed of then a Trial Diet on Oct 2nd, and that I would have to attend the Court in person, unless I changed my plea to guilty.

I have rung the National PF number every day for a week, always the same answer, they call Oban but there is nobody there to speak to them, so they send an e-mail asking them to call me, which they never do. I did however establish that they had my file on computer and it showed that I had pleaded guilty. Jane was actually in Court on the 22nd and remembers my case being brought up, and it seems that there was confusion then.

Feel better now that I have put it in a proffessionals hands, she had a good sense of humor, and though I do not have very high expectations on the outcome, I am sure she will do her best to try and get a one year ban reduced downwards.

tut

[BigD]

Definitely a good move tut, it's the small technicalities and the access to the courts/PF that the Lawyers have that is very useful. (as well as their vast knowledge, obviously)

[j2 lot]

Legal professional is your best chance of damage limitation. Best of luck

[ninja]

i'm up in court end of november for 100 and dangerous driving on the M8, which is a fooking lie as i wasn't speeding at the time. cops followed me from my house, 15 miles in a standard cop car (uncalibrated speedo) then pulled me with the "there are two of us and one of you so we're saying you were doing 100 and you'd be just as well admitting it" line. car's tracker shows 62mph at the alleged point i was speeding in the 60 bit just at barlinnie.

i've lawyered up obviously as i cannot afford to lose my licence as i do 40k miles a year for work and would be unable to do my job without transport.

honestly think i was followed cos i drive a bright orange sports car as i get stopped fortnightly in it - if i pulled into kwikfit each time i passed i'd still get my tyres checked more often by the fooking cops!

ninja

[Sanjøy]

I remember that feeling. Was pulled every other week on London and ended up carrying my passport and papers at all times as a result. Don't think it was my car that was the wrong colour through. Cos everyone loves Azure, obviously.

[tut]

Surely you are not suggesting that the police would discriminate just because of you suntan Sanj?

tut

[robin]

Just like the random selection of passengers to question at immigration I am sure there is no correlation to skin colour

[Sanjøy]

No problems with Scotland's finest I hasten to add.

[robin]

That may be so of the police, but not convinced it applies to the immigration:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/polit ... ry-1109338

Note this report quotes this as being the "fourth or fifth" time he had been stopped under schedule 7. I remember seeing him discuss it on one of the Scottish news programs - he claims that on this occasion he and his wife were the only non-white people in the immigration hall. Pretty damning if true. No comment from the Home Office - don't know if they asked for one or not, but my guess is that, as usual, they had no intelligence beyond "he's not white".

It's doubly bad: (a) blatant racial discrimination, (b) the obvious lack of intelligence behind these schedule 7 stops means that they are utterly pointless and will have no impact on the organized terrorist.

Cheers,
Robin

[j2 lot]

That may be so of the police, but not convinced it applies to the immigration:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/polit ... ry-1109338


Robin

There are some shocking public comments posted on the article

[tut]

Just like the random selection of passengers to question at immigration I am sure there is no correlation to skin colour

Seems like a good reason to target Muslims.
tut

Sunni Muslim terrorists committed “about 70 percent” of the 12,533 terrorist murders in the world last year, according to a report by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

“Sunni extremists accounted for the greatest number of terrorist attacks and fatalities for the third consecutive year,” the report says. “More than 5,700 incidents were attributed to Sunni extremists, accounting for nearly 56 percent of all attacks and about 70 percent of all fatalities.”

[pete]

That may be so of the police, but not convinced it applies to the immigration:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/polit ... ry-1109338

Flying while black.

None of this is making us any safer (IMHO) - it's just to give us the illusion of safety at the expense of our liberties and freedoms.

We walk through security at an airport and get sexually assaulted in the interests of what?
Where is the risk?