How does the defendant plead?
I’ll be honest, its been a crappy week. Im currently sat in a coffee shop in Derby after spending the morning in court. If you've been following my Instagram stories then you’ll know that I’ve had a small driving misdemeanour. My mate gets them on the regs, she just takes the points/does the course/pays the fine… me on the other other hand have had 18 years worth of a clean driving licence and my first offence goes to court <insert eye roll>.
First off, I’m in the wrong. I shouldn’t have been speeding and regardless of what happens next, I will get 6 points on my licence which I deserve. Secondly, I should have been more diligent when it came to changing my address with the DVLA. Sat in the court waiting room today I was surrounded by what can only be described as, narcissists that do no wrong (I should know, I’ve dated a few). I’ll quote one, we’ll call him Gary; “I was sat in traffic yeah, my hand break was on and everyfing yeah, I was on my phone and this copper yeah, he fined me… can’t believe it, we weren’t even movin!”. They were all there for the same reason, driving offences and apparently it wasn’t any of their faults. Me on the other hand, totally my fault.. I was speeding I deserve it. However it's not that simple, they couldn't track me down due to my 'fly by the seat of my pants' attitude to life last year.
I've moved 14 times in the last 14 years. During the summer last year I didn’t have a base, I packed up my life, popped it into storage and lived out the back of my car.. its was liberating not having ’stuff’. After a couple of months the novelty wore off sleeping in peoples spare rooms so I got a job and found a place to call home. Unfortunately during those two months ‘homeless' I got caught speeding and the letters went to my old address. Of course as soon as I moved into my new place I immediately changed my address (in fact I did it a week before when I excitingly signed my tenancy) but unbeknown to me the damage had been done and a court hearing had been scheduled.
They finally tracked me down in May this year and slapped a £1,000 bill on my doorstep. However I was told was that this was a seemingly straight forward task to rectify, "should be fine love, you just need to do a statutory declaration and it will go back to the beginning and you'll have the time to respond to the first letter". That's a crock of sh*t, two court hearings later and im still faced with a £1000 fine or risk it and go to trial. The risk is, if i'm found guilty then its a £2500 fine with the additional court fees… if i'm found Not Guilty, then zero fines.
I didn’t know what to do. On one hand I want rid of this stress and to just move on with my life. On the other hand i'm a diligent good person, with no previous convictions, surely common sense will prevail and they can see i'm not another aforementioned blameless serial speeder?
I pleaded Not Guilty.
Trial is scheduled in October, enough time to find a suitable Erin Brockovich outfit, because orange jumpsuits are gonna do nothing for my arse*.
So if there is a lesson to anyone out there now, go and check your V5, Driving Licence and your Insurance all are registered at your current address. It's not an urban myth, they do prosecute. oh and more importantly don’t speed.
Becky. x
*don’t panic, prison time is not an option