Best Of

"Bedbound pensioner, 84, convicted of not insuring car she'll never use again

An 84-year-old woman who is bedbound and reliant on daily care has been convicted of a driving offence after failing to insure a car"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/pensioner-convicted-car-insurance-bedbound-single-justice-procedure-dvla-b1261313.html

Paywalled. Can't see a rather critical issue. Is it on the road, or on her drive?

If the former, then the alternative is, I suppose, being accused of dumping - which may not be preferable these days?

Also, did she respond to the notice?

“My car which has always been parked on my drive was of no use to me and I did not insure it on renewal as I will never drive again and have surrendered my driving licence."

There is no mention of whether it was SORNed.

Presumably no, which is the issue of computer-says-no idiots, following the Process State.

The Process is to SORN, you have not followed Process, so you must be prosecuted.

The logical response to that response would instead be "OK, if the car is on drive and you are not driving it again and have surrendered your licence, you need to SORN it, we will assist you with that". Rather than "we will send you to court for not following Process".

Of course it is, and a family member should have sorted the SORN. The article underplays the fact that she was given what is describes as a 'discharge' - probably meaning an absolute discharge, which means the court is saying you have technically committed an offence but you haven't really done anything wrong.

The process state does a lot of wickeder things than giving absolute discharges to little old ladies when they have broken the law and their family hasn't come to the rescue.

I imagine the bulk prosecution system gives no attention at all to the public interest when deciding to proceed, it will all be 'Computer says yes'.

If it gave a chance to reply before prosecution, and a reply was given, then surely someone at some point had to read the reply and think "we will still prosecute anyway despite this reply".

The courts have a ridiculous backlog and we are wasting court time with this kind of petty crap.

Maybe instead of abolishing trial by jury, we could stop to think from time to time whether every pettifogging Process breach needs to go before a court?

To paraphrase Dr Ian Malcolm, their lawyers were so preoccupied by whether or not they could [prosecute], they didn't stop to think if they should.

The Evening Standard (& other journalistic investigation) has revealed that nobody reads the pleas for mitigation in a Single Justice Procedure prosecution before they get to court. That’s one of the major problems with it - cases that should have been dropped immediately for lack of public interest are ending up in court & criminalising vulnerable people who have made what, to most people, seem like minor technical oversights in law at worst.

In this particular case, the DVLA /had/ all the information required to point out that someone who had surrendered their driving licence still had a registered vehicle in their name & it was neither SORNed nor insured. There’s nothing stopping them from writing a letter to the registered address in this case & giving a small amount of leeway. Instead we’ve wasted the courts time & criminalised an 84 year old. What good does that do society? Not much, I’d argue.

"Bedbound pensioner, 84, convicted of not insuring car she'll never use again

An 84-year-old woman who is bedbound and reliant on daily care has been convicted of a driving offence after failing to insure a car"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/pensioner-convicted-car-insurance-bedbound-single-justice-procedure-dvla-b1261313.html

Paywalled. Can't see a rather critical issue. Is it on the road, or on her drive?

If the former, then the alternative is, I suppose, being accused of dumping - which may not be preferable these days?

Also, did she respond to the notice?

“My car which has always been parked on my drive was of no use to me and I did not insure it on renewal as I will never drive again and have surrendered my driving licence."

There is no mention of whether it was SORNed.

Presumably no, which is the issue of computer-says-no idiots, following the Process State.

The Process is to SORN, you have not followed Process, so you must be prosecuted.

The logical response to that response would instead be "OK, if the car is on drive and you are not driving it again and have surrendered your licence, you need to SORN it, we will assist you with that". Rather than "we will send you to court for not following Process".

Of course it is, and a family member should have sorted the SORN. The article underplays the fact that she was given what is describes as a 'discharge' - probably meaning an absolute discharge, which means the court is saying you have technically committed an offence but you haven't really done anything wrong.

The process state does a lot of wickeder things than giving absolute discharges to little old ladies when they have broken the law and their family hasn't come to the rescue.

I imagine the bulk prosecution system gives no attention at all to the public interest when deciding to proceed, it will all be 'Computer says yes'.

If it gave a chance to reply before prosecution, and a reply was given, then surely someone at some point had to read the reply and think "we will still prosecute anyway despite this reply".

The courts have a ridiculous backlog and we are wasting court time with this kind of petty crap.

Maybe instead of abolishing trial by jury, we could stop to think from time to time whether every pettifogging Process breach needs to go before a court?

To paraphrase Dr Ian Malcolm, their lawyers were so preoccupied by whether or not they could [prosecute], they didn't stop to think if they should.

"Bedbound pensioner, 84, convicted of not insuring car she'll never use again

An 84-year-old woman who is bedbound and reliant on daily care has been convicted of a driving offence after failing to insure a car"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/pensioner-convicted-car-insurance-bedbound-single-justice-procedure-dvla-b1261313.html

Paywalled. Can't see a rather critical issue. Is it on the road, or on her drive?

If the former, then the alternative is, I suppose, being accused of dumping - which may not be preferable these days?

Also, did she respond to the notice?

“My car which has always been parked on my drive was of no use to me and I did not insure it on renewal as I will never drive again and have surrendered my driving licence."

There is no mention of whether it was SORNed.

Presumably no, which is the issue of computer-says-no idiots, following the Process State.

The Process is to SORN, you have not followed Process, so you must be prosecuted.

The logical response to that response would instead be "OK, if the car is on drive and you are not driving it again and have surrendered your licence, you need to SORN it, we will assist you with that". Rather than "we will send you to court for not following Process".

Normally what happens is if you don't renew your insurance your insurer contacts you confirming that your insurance hasn't renewed, they are obliged to inform the authorities, and that it is an offence to not have insurance if the vehicle isn't SORN'd.

Indeed, we know what the Process is, but someone who is bed-bound and has surrendered their licence might not and might think that surrendering their licence fulfilled their requirements.

Ignorance is no excuse under the law, but considering the circumstances and the fact that the licence had been surrendered and she did reply to them with that quote (I am assuming, since it was given in quotation marks), then handling that by enabling the SORN rather than wasting the court's time because Process was not followed might have served justice better.

Back when I was a councillor, there was a pensioner resident in my ward who regularly appeared in the papers because of legal actions the council took against him. The reports were always phrased in terms of the pensioner being 'persecuted' or 'hounded' by a 'vindictive' council.
Once there was the uninsured and untaxed vehicle which was 'essential' to him getting around. This was an ex-army lorry which he parked beside his house (despite having a drive) which repeatedly blocked the access to the close of houses behind him,
Then there was the 'untidy site' 'witchhunt'. That was when he had moved the lorry to his drive. And it caught fire. And destroyed his neighbour's car.
Then there was the next untidy site. That was when he turned his back garden into a timber store. Twelve foot or taller baulks of timber - stored vertically, leaning over into the neighbour's garden.
Then he roofed his entire back garden over without planning permission and used it as a workshop from which loud noise and awful noise was emitted at all times of day or night - he was metalworking and paintspraying.
That one took years. And was finally brought to a conclusion when on one visit from the enforcement officers they found he was storing gas cylinders in the 'shed' - they estimated that if there had been explosion it would have taken out th entire terrace of four houses.

And every story - from the same journalists, who knew the whole backstory - was about how the council was making him suffer.

I often think of this when I read reports of a resident having 'unreasonable' action being taken against them by a local authority.

On topic - is there not a meme on this board that the most accurate pollster is that which has Labour doing worst?

FPT:

https://x.com/pippacrerar/status/1997296467195617672

Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth

What do they know about growth? They spent the best part of a year talking down the economy and were surprised that confidence collapsed.

If they do it, the aim wouldn't really be "to boost growth" but to polarise the electorate and try to build a coalition based winning as many of the 48% as possible.

They probably will. As I've said before, many times, Starmer was a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in opposition and he's now a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in office.

He will end up neither trusted nor respected, so it might not even work no matter what he does.

Spare us the insulting language, Casino.

It's time you recognised that Brexiteers and their project are deeply unpopular. You shat the bed for all of us. Time to be a little less dismissive of those who want to change the sheets.

I don't read any insulting language in Casino's post - am I missing something?

I read his post simply as a rather cynical one that Starmer may well benefit from a tack towards the EU, despite being rather disliked, but that he might be so disliked by that point that people won't be willing to hold their noses.

I for one would put up with a pretty crap next few years policy-wise if a closer economic and security relationship with the EU was on the ballot next election.

Yes, some people have never made their peace with the result, and the push for Rejoin—in whatever packaging—still owes as much to wounded pride as to policy. For a certain set, the Leave vote wasn’t just wrong; it was an affront to the natural order in which they are always ‘right.’ Losing to people they openly despise is something they still haven’t processed. The irony is that the pomposity and arrogance that turns so many off remains entirely invisible to the because, in their minds, ‘the facts’ excuse everything - in fact, they provide an excuse for it. That in turn drives a vociferous reaction.

But the politics of 2025 aren’t the politics of 2015. That world isn’t coming back. A pro-EU tilt might help Starmer consolidate his core vote, but it risks bleeding plenty of Reform-facing marginals.

He’d shore up his presence in Parliament, but it’s not a route to another majority.

I can't speak for others but I think you do your opponents a disservice by referring to wounded pride.

Amongst those I spend time with (mostly teachers, and most were on the Remain side) Brexit doesn't really get talked about any more.

But I do think you are putting blinkers on if you only talk about pomposity and arrogance and discount the much more rational view that we have harmed ourselves economically and in relation to our security by divorcing from Europe just at the moment when other reliable global partners have imploded.

"Bedbound pensioner, 84, convicted of not insuring car she'll never use again

An 84-year-old woman who is bedbound and reliant on daily care has been convicted of a driving offence after failing to insure a car"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/pensioner-convicted-car-insurance-bedbound-single-justice-procedure-dvla-b1261313.html

Paywalled. Can't see a rather critical issue. Is it on the road, or on her drive?

If the former, then the alternative is, I suppose, being accused of dumping - which may not be preferable these days?

Also, did she respond to the notice?

“My car which has always been parked on my drive was of no use to me and I did not insure it on renewal as I will never drive again and have surrendered my driving licence."

There is no mention of whether it was SORNed.

Presumably no, which is the issue of computer-says-no idiots, following the Process State.

The Process is to SORN, you have not followed Process, so you must be prosecuted.

The logical response to that response would instead be "OK, if the car is on drive and you are not driving it again and have surrendered your licence, you need to SORN it, we will assist you with that". Rather than "we will send you to court for not following Process".

Yes, remember 2015GE and how Martin "Kaboom" Boon reacted to this, by self-censoring his polls.

Being an outlier is uncomfortable, but it doesn't mean you're wrong. It is high-risk though: you are feted as a genius if you're right, and pilloried if you're wrong.

It was Damian from Survation who self censored his own poll.

Fair enough. I recall Martin Boon making a fool of himself over it, though.

Perhaps he was simply too confident of the result and the outcome (incorrectly) on his Twitter feed.

2017 was a bonkers time.

I was told the week Mrs May announced the election the Tory private polling had the Tories winning a majority of 294 and potentially over 300 if Scotland played ball.

I have no doubt that poll was kosher (I think the best public poll had the Tories winning a majority of around 200).

The irony is that the polling led Mrs May to propose the dementia tax thinking a hefty majority was in the bag.

OGH and I made a hefty profit selling the Tories at 395ish seats.

Yes, she got found it. I lost money because I thought no-one would ever touch Jeremy Corbyn. Her style of privately deciding what to do and then refusing to engage, communicate or listen really pissed people off.

Thankfully, I traded out my position to near neutral on the night itself.

To be fair, at least May announced policies. Instead of Starmer's ending of trial by jury in most cases, throwing away British sovereign territory and paying for the privilege, and hiking taxes to pump directly into benefits. Not to mention the probable (we'll see) approval for the Chinese 'embassy'.