Causing and Permitting No Insurance Aberdeen Not Guilty

Our client was a very successful business man (with great taste in cars) whose vehicle had been taken without his consent by an employee who was not insured to drive it. He was charged for causing and permitting the vehicle to be driven without there being in place a vaild policy of insurance for the driver.

The employee was pulled over by the Police as his car looked dirty and they were suspicious as they thought that dirty cars may not have insurance (and I'm quoting this from the horse's mouth - so to speak...). Call it a hunch, call it an instinct or call it ultimately inept police work but the driver was not named on the policy of insurance. Note that no checks were carried out on the driver (which was important).

In any event, the Crown could not proceed against the driver and this left our client facing the music. 

When we examined the evidence in the case we simply could not see how the Crown could secure a conviction. In fact, we contacted the Crown in advance of the Trial to tell them what the problems were in the case but they didn't seem to understand.

Causing and permitting offences are generally misunderstood by the Prosecution and hence are good cases to defend in Court.

On the morning of the Trial it was explained to our client that there were a number of ways out of the charge and the only difficulty was in selecting the best of them. 

The Crown began the Trial and we objected to certain parts of the evidence. Initially, the Court appeared to have its own difficulty in understanding our legal argument and listened to the evidence under reservation. Halfway through the evidence of the second witness, the penny dropped with the Prosecutor who - and all credit to him - immediately abandoned the case. Our client was found not guilty and had no penalty points endorsed on his licence, keeping it nice and clean.

This case was argued by our Mr Simpson on 26th July 2018 at Aberdeen Justice of the Peace Court.

 Kept Licence!