We had a chap in Court today who had accidentally run into the back of a Fiesta with his Audi Q7. Ordinarily, he would have exchanged details and either paid the repair costs of £200 or allowed his insurance to deal with it. The person whose car he ran into was uninjured as it had been a slow speed collision in queueing traffic.
Unfortunately, he chose to accelerate past the car he had bumped and disappear up the road.
It took the Police 10 weeks to eventually catch up with him and upon examination, his Audi was pristine. Not surprising really as he runs an accident claim business.
Anyway, he denied all knowledge, even taking into account that the other driver along with a totally independent witness had noted his registration number and reported the facts to the Police.
CPS thought different and he was charged with careless driving, failing to stop and failing to report an accident. He pleaded not guilty to each charge and took it to trial today.
The prosecution witness evidence was superb. His advocate, clearly clutching at straws, stated that he admitted being the only person with access to the vehicle but that he had not been involved in an accident. She even, bless her cotton socks, ran the "His vehicle registration was cloned" defence, which might have been given some consideration by the Bench... except for the known fact that cloned registrations are done to maintain anonymity.
The defendant's registration was of the form D1AMO. Not quite those letters but clearly a very distinctive private plate. We discounted the 'cloned' argument.
Other than that he had no defence other than repeated denial.
It was clear that he had come up with a pack of lies from start to finish.
In due course we found him guilty and what sickened us the most was that, having hit the car, he deliberately chose to drive off with no idea what injuries had been caused to the occupants of the other car and his repeated denials, in the face of overwhelming evidence wasted a good deal of Court time and money, not to mention the trauma of having the other driver, a young woman of nervous disposition, come to court, face him and give evidence.
He couldn't even admit to his true income so we could set a fine... until I told him that we were going to adjourn pending the production of audited accounts.
Eventually we were given a means declaration which, while we didn't believe a word of it, was a lot more realistic than his first offering.
For this little episode, his fines and costs came to a total of £4420. He was disqualified from driving for 3 months and fifty-odd grand's worth of Audi Q7 became the subject of a deprivation order and will be in the crusher by Christmas.
Finally, we recommended the CPS to consider a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Whether they will do so or not is unknown.
All he needed to have done was to pull over and admit to the other driver that he'd momentarily lost concentration.
Perhaps, this evening, he doesn't consider himself above the law.
Sometimes, I fail to understand human nature
Unfortunately, he chose to accelerate past the car he had bumped and disappear up the road.
It took the Police 10 weeks to eventually catch up with him and upon examination, his Audi was pristine. Not surprising really as he runs an accident claim business.
Anyway, he denied all knowledge, even taking into account that the other driver along with a totally independent witness had noted his registration number and reported the facts to the Police.
CPS thought different and he was charged with careless driving, failing to stop and failing to report an accident. He pleaded not guilty to each charge and took it to trial today.
The prosecution witness evidence was superb. His advocate, clearly clutching at straws, stated that he admitted being the only person with access to the vehicle but that he had not been involved in an accident. She even, bless her cotton socks, ran the "His vehicle registration was cloned" defence, which might have been given some consideration by the Bench... except for the known fact that cloned registrations are done to maintain anonymity.
The defendant's registration was of the form D1AMO. Not quite those letters but clearly a very distinctive private plate. We discounted the 'cloned' argument.
Other than that he had no defence other than repeated denial.
It was clear that he had come up with a pack of lies from start to finish.
In due course we found him guilty and what sickened us the most was that, having hit the car, he deliberately chose to drive off with no idea what injuries had been caused to the occupants of the other car and his repeated denials, in the face of overwhelming evidence wasted a good deal of Court time and money, not to mention the trauma of having the other driver, a young woman of nervous disposition, come to court, face him and give evidence.
He couldn't even admit to his true income so we could set a fine... until I told him that we were going to adjourn pending the production of audited accounts.
Eventually we were given a means declaration which, while we didn't believe a word of it, was a lot more realistic than his first offering.
For this little episode, his fines and costs came to a total of £4420. He was disqualified from driving for 3 months and fifty-odd grand's worth of Audi Q7 became the subject of a deprivation order and will be in the crusher by Christmas.
Finally, we recommended the CPS to consider a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Whether they will do so or not is unknown.
All he needed to have done was to pull over and admit to the other driver that he'd momentarily lost concentration.
Perhaps, this evening, he doesn't consider himself above the law.
Sometimes, I fail to understand human nature
Paul
Cogito ergo sum... maybe?
Click the image to go to Nano-Meet Website
Cogito ergo sum... maybe?
Click the image to go to Nano-Meet Website
