New legislation came into force in 2015 making it illegal to drive with certain levels of drugs in your system. Since then, Levins has gained a huge amount of experience dealing with Drug Driving offences, we can help.

We will discuss your case with you and advise you on all aspects of it and will provide you with a full, clear evaluation of your case. We will then talk you through any defence(s) available to you and provide you with advice on the realistic prospects of the outcomes of them.

This way you will have a clear picture and a full understanding of what the process is and have some honest advice and evaluation of the possible outcomes.

In March 2005 eight illicit and eight generally prescription drugs were added into the new legislation, with regulations around amphetamine being added shortly after. The limit for each drug is measured in microgames per litre of blood.

The threshold limits with regards to this offence are infinitely lower than those in respect of drink driving offences. There are currently no set Sentencing Guidelines in respect of the offence of Drug Driving. The guidance issued by the Magistrates’ Courts Sentencing Council in November 2016 advises Courts to impose a minimum 12 month driving disqualification for a first-time offender. The length of the disqualification that the Court will impose will range from 12 – 36 months and in more serious cases, the Court can impose a community penalty (ie unpaid work) or even up to 6 months in prison.

It is worth noting that, unlike an offence of Drink Driving, there is no Rehabilitation Course available to reduce any disqualification period.

Consideration must be given to the fact that if you have a previous drink or drug driving conviction within the last ten-years, then the minimum disqualification will be three years.

If a Court considers that there are aggravating factors that make your case more serious, for instance a collision or evidence of poor driving, then the Court can impose an increased disqualification period beyond the minimum 12 months.

If convicted of a speeding offence, you will receive penalty points and a fine. In the more serious speeding cases, the court also has a discretion to impose an immediate driving ban, known as a discretionary disqualification.

If you find yourself with a speeding ticket, a court summons or a Single Justice Procedure Notice, then we would invite you to contact us to discuss your case as soon as possible to see how we can help. We have clarified some of the terminology around speeding offences for you below.

If you are stopped at the roadside, you will not receive a Notice of Intended Prosecution and s.172 request for driver information within 14 days of the offence. The officer should inform you of their intention to prosecute you for the offence. As part of this, the officer should ask you for your full driver details.

However, if you are stopped at the roadside and the alleged speed is such that the matter cannot be dealt with by way of a fixed penalty notice, then a Single Justice Procedure Notice should be sent to you through the post within 6 months from the date of the alleged offence. This is because the officer will have ‘laid the information’ in respect of the offence.

If you were NOT stopped at the roadside then you should receive an NIP within 14 days of the alleged offence. This arises when your vehicle will have been ‘flashed’ by a speed camera for example.

The NIP will be sent to the registered keeper of the vehicle and the recipient will be requested to confirm the driver of the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence. Upon receipt of the NIP, please remember that if you are nominating somebody else then the nominee will receive their own NIP (addressed to them) in the post after you have nominated them.

The Section 172 Notice accompanies the NIP. The importance of responding in time cannot be stressed enough.

For example, failing to respond in time with the information with regard to a speeding offence which would attract three penalty points, could result in you being the recipient of six penalty points as a consequence of this failure to reply. You will not get the points for the speeding offence as well.

Upon completing the s.172 Notice (request to confirm the identity of the driver), if you confirm that you were the driver then you are simply doing this and NOT admitting the offence.  You have simply confirmed that you were driving at the time and date detailed within the NIP. If it was not you driving at the time of the offence and you know who was driving then you cannot avoid a conviction by a failure to complete the s.172 Notice.

Should you not respond, then you could be charged with an additional offence of Failing to Provide Driver Information – see below.

Once you have returned the NIP you are then likely to receive a conditional offer of a fixed penalty. This will depend upon the speed involved. It is at this point that you can accept the offer after which you must pay the appropriate fine or book the recommended driver awareness course.  If you dispute the alleged offence then you should not accept the conditional offer.  By accepting a conditional offer, you are effectively pleading guilty to the offence.  If you have 9 + penalty points on your licence you cannot accept a fixed penalty, you will have been sent the offer in error.

The registered keeper (or any other person) is under a legal obligation to identify the driver of their vehicle if the vehicle is alleged to have committed an offence (e.g. speeding) and they are asked by the police. If you do not identify the driver then you will likely be summonsed to appear before the Magistrates’ Court for an offence of “failing to identify the driver”.

If you do not know who the driver is, then it will be a defence if you are able to show that you did not know who the driver was and you have exercised all reasonable diligence to identify the driver.

This means that you will have to show firstly that you did not know who the driver was and secondly that you have taken all reasonable steps to work out who it was.

This will usually mean asking the police for photographic evidence, looking at the location of the offence, the time, speaking to all of the possible drivers and generally doing all that you can to work out who it was.

If you find yourself faced with a request from the police and are unable to identify the driver you should write to the police making sure you can prove delivery, explaining the difficulties that you are encountering and if there are a number of possible drivers, providing the names and addresses of these people.

If you are subsequently prosecuted for failing to provide driver information, this letter will provide valuable evidence that you have acted reasonably and done all that you can

Failure to identify driver penalty

Failing to identify the driver carries 6 penalty points or an immediate ban, and a fine of up to £1,000.

However, if handled correctly, you have a very good chance of winning your case. Notices requiring you to identify a driver or disclose driver details are sent out by the Central Ticket Office. This office is staffed by civilians, not police officers, and such notices are mass produced by computer. This means that staff from the Central Ticket Office often misunderstand and misapply the law, and there is often a margin for error.

If you have been charged with failing to identify a driver, or failing to provide driver details, there are several ways that the case can be defended.

We handle serious cases regularly and our criminal defence solicitors have deep expertise. We can help you by recommending the best course of action to take to mitigate the outcome. No matter what size your case is, get in touch.

Most clients who seek the advice of our expert criminal defence solicitors fail to understand that it is the prosecution who ‘must prove the case’ to convict you. It is for the prosecution to prove, so that the jury is no less than sure, beyond any reasonable doubt in their mind, that you are guilty of the crime you are accused of undertaking.

You need guidance and legal advice from criminal defence solicitors who have a proven track record of success (see our cases) who will go over and beyond the call of duty to try and win your case.

Especially when the stakes are so high, where there is the very real possibility of a lengthy term of imprisonment, where a lifetime in prison is more than certainly to follow the main case and where there is an unimaginable impact of your family members; you must be sure your criminal defence solicitors are creative problem solvers, are experienced and knowledgeable, are right by your side throughout the case and most of all, are absolutely committed to win.

Our criminal defence solicitors are experts at unravelling complex and substantial volumes of evidence often associated with serious crimes. We have a solid and definite history in successfully defending allegations and we stop at nothing to find valuable defence evidence to strengthen your defence. Whilst we usually adopt a worst-case scenario position, you can be sure that shortcuts have not been taken and we will go as far as possible to evaluate the likely defence strategies of others bring prosecuted in the same case.

One of the biggest fears of an experienced criminal defence solicitors defending these allegations is the uncertainty of what other accused in the case will say, whether they will blame you and whether they will produce evidence in their own defence which will adversely affect your case. Our criminal defence solicitors have defended cases for decades and always start very early on to build the profile and the likely strategy of others accused from the beginning.