Speeding Paisley 106mph No Disqualification

Our client was a successful local businessman whose licence was a luxury rather than an essential. 

It was a fine day and our client was in no particular rush. He had been rather impeded by a much slower moving vehicle in front and at a suitable and safe place to do so, overtook the car in front. Almost inevitably, the Police had just joined the M8 motorway at junction 31 and eventually paced our client allegedly travelling at a speed of 106mph in a 70mph limit (contrary to section 17(4) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984). Our client pled guilty by letter and then received a letter from Paisley Justice of the Peace Court requesting his personal attendance to make representations against disqualification. We were contacted and requested to save his licence. 

We advised that the alleged speed (which our client denied) was too fast for the JP Court in Paisley to deal with in any other way than by exercising its powers of discretionary disqualification and that we could probably win the case at Trial - provided that we could have his initial plea of guilty withdrawn. Calibrated speedometer based cases can be notoriously difficult for the Crown to prove and we have spent over a decade winning these types of cases.

After having his guilty plea withdrawn and a not guilty plea recorded instead, we set to work. As matters progressed, we were increasingly confident of securing an outright acquittal. The Trial had been arranged - in error - by the Court for a non-Court day and we were contacted by the Procurator Fiscal's Office to try and agree a new date. We took the opportunity to discuss the case and managed to persuade the Crown to reduce the headline speed from 106mph to 96mph. We then discussed the potential resolution with our client and he elected to take the offer and accept the charge at the reduced speed. We attended and addressed the Court in mitigation in his absence.

The Court listened carefully to our submissions and endorsed his licence with 4 penalty points and imposed a fine of £400. Our client did not require to attend Court once for this case.

This case was dealt with by our Mr Simpson at Paisley Sheriff Court on 6th June 2018.