I was just wondering how long you had to wait from returning the NIP to actually receiving your court date.

as its now been over 11 months for meand I'm still waiting!!

I can't believe that I've got away it,but to ban/fine someone nearly a year after the event is ridiculous I think,or not?

cheers,Jon

 

As I understand it you must recieve notification of date of court appearance within six months of the date of the offence, assuming that there has been no undue delay in issuing the NIP (eg, change of address, so difficulty in tracking you down etc). Outside that six month period the case cannot proceed.

Sounds to me as though you have got away with it

Gareth

 

I'm in Thursday for an 'offence' that happened in September last year (complete with good brief) - not sure about any time rules for getting it to court tho

 

Someone I know has just been summoned to Court after 14 months.

 

I'm basing the above info on advice I'd asked for on 5ive-O.

The response that I got was that the case proceedings must be instigated within six months of the date of the offence. This meant that so long as you recieved your court summons within that six month period, the case would proceed, even if the court date was then a few months later (ie perhaps 8 months after the date of the offence).

As mentioned all this assumes there was no delay in issueing the court summons. If the NIP had been issued at the time of the offence (ie. by being stopped by a police officer), or issued within 14 days of the offence (ie. perhaps caught on a revenue camera) and there were no other delays to hold up the proceedings, six months is the limit.

If your case now goes to court I would have thought the magistrates would just dismiss it.

All this is mentioned in good faith, so please no legal comeback on me cos you said in court "well GarethE said"

Hope you get it sorted....prepared to bow to police/solicitors/magistrates or people with direct experience of this, who are better informed than me

 

Papers have to be laid with the court within 6 months. You could phone the court in the area of the offence and ask if papers had been laid in your name. Once papers are laid then they can take their time actually getting you to court but you should see a summons within 6 months of the offence. I am assuming from your comments that either you were going not guilty or else you were facing a ban and so it had to go to court?

However, in this instance I'd guess that you have escaped. In short what GarethE says accurately describes the situation.

As likely as not you will find that they have screwed up so badly they have decided not to proceed. Usually in such circumstances they proceed anyhow in the hope that the victim will go guilty and they will get away with it. This is why you should always demand the disclosure of all evidence etc. etc.