<http://www.motorcyclenews.com/nav?page=motorcyclenews.articles.articleC ategory.article&resourceId=4441973&articleCategory=NEWS_OTHER-NEWS> March 1 2006 Speed camera loophole Nearly all speed camera prosecutions are based on inadmissible evidence and can therefore be thrown out, according to an exclusive report in MCN - out on March 1. It's because defendants aren't given evidence on time. By not providing a photo or video evidence at least seven days before a trial, camera partnerships breach the 1967 Criminal Justice Act. MCN News Editor Tony Carter said: "We contacted each of the three biggest camera partnerships and they all said evidence isn't automatically submitted. "The problem for most people accused of speeding is they won't realise that this fact of law - which our investigation has uncovered - can render the evidence inadmissible in court. People need to be aware of their rights." For the full and exclusive story see MCN out on Wednesday March 1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From the Metro: "Top traffic lawyer Nick Freeman, who successfully defended David Beckham, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Sir Alex Ferguson, said: 'Most of the prosecuting authorities go to court without producing the photo and so there's no admissible evidence as to what the speed is'"
The problem is that being published in MCN automatically makes it bollocks. Being published "exclusively" in MCN means that it's such *utter* bollocks that nobody else could bring themselves to run it.
It's quite obvious why they connive. The magistrates' courts are part of the so-called "safety camera partnerships", i.e. they receive money from the schemes. This is a flagrant breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to a fair trial) and is being challenged.
So what happens when it's run in other papers saying it was in MCN? Does that make it less or more valid?
It's either: 1) April 1st, or 2) The headline reads something like, "MCN plagiarise internet newsgroup and print utter bollocks in sting operation". FU's reset BTW
Dunno what happened, but when I tried to reply it was only set to follow up to uk.legal. Could be Outpuke Express at my end of course...
The London Metro newspaper are running it today -- Top of Page 8, column 5 -- No web site so I went to the MCN website. It may well be in other newspapers was well..
Strictly speaking, the volunteer JP's don't have any sight of or need for the Scamera Bonus - it's just more unpaid work for them. But.... they may nonetheless be drawn into the issue, eg by a veiled reminder that it's been factored into next year's budget (and that losing it would mean the cancellation of refurbishment X or redundancy of employee Y). This could be quite persuasive, I imagine.
Speed camera loophole Yeh right. My old man got nicked and asked. He got a very fine photo which looked like he was in a 4 wheel drift (he wasn't - only going 37 but a great camera angle) along with chapter and verse on the calibration. He decided it was time to pay up and shut up.
Some you win some you loose. 7 times is a pretty impressive total and beats me hands down. It is *always* worth playing a few simple angles though. Naturally having a velcro numberplate with a couple of wrong digits or a substantial chunk missing will be a superior option, the latter being considerably safer but involving rather more frequent tugging. Getting the former wrong will make a mere speeding ticket look benign.
More foolproof is the velcro plate bearing a registration number of the same make, model and colour of your car.
In uk.rec.motorcycles, Clark Spyendchipz belched forth and ejected the following: Paging BGN but I don't see how putting a different vehicle's plate on your bike is any more "foolproof"[1] than complete falsies. [1] Fool*ish* more like. You'd be better off having no plate at all!
