Our Solicitor Mr Gary Bryan was instructed by a 38 year old male charged with Driving whilst over the legal limit with regards to alcohol, an offence contrary to Section 5 (1) (a) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The offence carrying a mandatory minimum ban of 12 months upon conviction and due to the facts of the particular case along with the level of alcohol found in the defendants urine sample a conviction placed him at risk of a 17 driving ban. This would have had disastrous consequences to client bearing in mind he required his car not only to get to work but to carry out part of his job function.
Client came to MJP Solicitors in a state of great anxiety and stress with regards to the precepts of losing his licence. Clients instructions essentially accepting the offence that he accepting driving the motor vehicle immediately prior to his arrest and he accepted that upon providing a breath specimen with a reading of 42 (the legal limit being 35) he was quite properly given the statutory option to replace the sample with a specimen of blood or urine. In this case the police chose urine. Client elected to provide a urine sample and the level of alcohol found in the same was said to be 140mg, the legal limit being 108.
Client instructed our Solicitor Mr Gary Bryan to attend at Court with a view to examining the evidence and carrying out what in all likelihood would be a plea and mitigation exercise with a view to keeping any ban to a minimum.
On arrival at Court our Solicitor Mr Gary Bryan examined the initial bundle of evidence in detail by himself in a private consultation room before calling client in to the room to join him.
Our Solicitor Mr Gary Bryan noticed a potential issue in the prosecution papers with regards to how the police dealt with the taking of the urine samples.
Our Solicitor then obtained further instructions from client in that regard and in light of those instructions our Solicitor was able to advise client that the police had not acted in accordance with the relevant legislation and case law with regards to the taking of his samples.
Our Solicitor made it clear that the failure if established would result in the case collapsing. Accordingly we advised our client to enter a not guilty plea and for a trial date to be fixed. In court the not guilty plea was entered, a trial date was fixed and our Solicitor Mr Gary Bryan wrote to the CPS in strong and clear terms.
Within a short number of days we receive from the prosecution a notice of discontinuance confirming that they were dropping the case against client.
Client went from facing a 17 month driving ban which would have resulted in loss of job to somebody who no longer faced any criminal offence at all.
There is no doubt that the majority of general criminal defence practitioners would not have spotted the issue. The instruction of a Solicitor doing general crime work could very well have resulted in the defendant pleading guilty and proceeding straight to sentence without client ever being aware that there was a fundamental flaw to the prosecutors case
We will not know whether or not this type of outcome is possible in your case until such a time as we have examined the evidence.
What may look like a straight forward case may actually be hiding an important issue that can and should be raised.
For further information on our motoring defence services visit our website.
Aug, 01, 2014