A recurring theme among defendants and witnesses since I first set foot in a courtroom in 1995 is worry that they will be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice read more...
It’s well known that experienced drivers can accumulate twelve penalty points on their driving record at which point they are disqualified from driving as a “ totter ”. Most people read more...
If you are convicted of drink driving or failing to provide a specimen for analysis , the court may as you if you want to take the drink driving rehabilitation course. read more...
With Christmas nearly upon us the UK’s consumption of tiny boozy chocolates is about to skyrocket. One question I have been asked a few times over the years by friends read more...
If you watch enough police shows on TV you can be forgiven for thinking that scientific evidence – which includes often very sophisticated speed detection equipment used on British roads read more...
To secure a conviction for drink driving, the police must show evidence that you were over the drink driving limit when you drove. To do this they require you to read more...
Do drink driving laws, and road traffic laws generally, apply to e-scooters is a question we are asked regularly. The short answer is: “yes, the rules apply”. The long answer read more...
Detective Superintendent Andy Cox inadvertently sparked a mini debate on Twitter about whether somebody driving at excessively high speed can be guilty of dangerous driving when he tweeted: We don’t read more...
Following any major road traffic incident there will be people calling for tougher sentences and prison to be imposed on everyone from speeders up. Many people are surprised to find read more...
Drink driving law can be quite technical at times and rarely more so when you find yourself arguing over whether a place is a road or not. It’s actually quite read more...
One of the biggest problems for our clients are those who instruct us that they want to plead not guilty or advance a special reason but who have made comments read more...
CT had been stopped by police driving her car away from her home in the early hours of the morning. Police suspected she was under the influence of alcohol and read more...
Driving while under the influence of drink or drugs has been a criminal offence for several decades but in March 2015, section 5A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 came read more...
A few years ago, a client claimed to have beaten the evidential breath test machine (EBM) some years before by sucking a penny. It’s an old urban legend that the read more...
A question we are regularly asked is whether acid reflux can provide a defence in drink driving cases. The simple answer is “no”; the more complicated answer continues, “but it read more...
If you’ve been charged with drink driving – or drug driving – then you should have heard the statutory warning just before you blew into the evidential breath machine (EBM) read more...
Drink spiking (or lacing as lawyers call it) is the Schrödinger’s Cat of motoring law. On the one hand, we all know that it happens and that the police and read more...
Background We were instructed to represent JMM, a first-year university student, who had been arrested for drink driving after a night out with friends. Police spotted JMM’s people-filled car driving read more...
One of the most oft overlooked elements in motoring law is the law itself – that’s not to say that courts and lawyers don’t worry about the fundamentals of offences read more...
There is a common belief among solicitors, barristers and even some judges that if you get behind the wheel of a car while you are over the drink driving limit read more...
Special reasons are a concept that applies in cases where a defendant is facing an obligatory driving disqualification – that is to say a ban that the court must impose read more...
Opinion evidence is not generally admissible as evidence at trial. Expert evidence is a form of opinion evidence that is excluded from the general rule where it meets all the read more...
There are strict rules governing the admissibility of expert evidence. In this case, the prosecution obtain forensic evidence that did not comply with those rules and were forced to drop read more...
A common complaint we hear is that the police officer who arrested our client had no reason for stopping them in the first place. So, what powers do the police read more...
It’s pretty obvious what we mean by a road, isn’t it? When we talk about a road in everyday conversation we might use the word to mean a street, a read more...