Fines Aren’t So Fine

Time was fines court was a test of both nerve and skill, but not so any longer.
Nowadays, most fine defaulters are dealt with by the Fines Enforcement Officer leaving only two main types who need to go before the Bench, those who clearly are unable to pay their fines and those claiming ‘it weren’t me guv’.

The first lot are usually those who, over a period of time, have managed to amass fines sometimes running into the thousands of pounds, usually as a result of non-appearance at court and a fine being imposed in their absence. This can mean that they’d be paying their fines for the next 20 or 30 years.
‘So what’ you might say – ah but those placed in high above us have decreed that:
(a)we can’t take more than £5 per week off a benefit claimant, and the majority of fine defaulters are on some form of State Benefit, and
(b)fines should be re-payable in 12 months.
Effectively, it limits a benefit claimant’s fines to approx £250, the rest we are compelled to ‘remit’, cancel by any other term.

The second category comprises those who, following a speed camera violation, claim they never received the request to confirm the identity of the driver and were consequentially fined in their absence. Strangely, they usually receive the fines notice which brings them hot-foot to court but can rarely, if ever, give any cogent reason why the camera violation notice, a reminder, and a summons all mysteriously went astray.

One man last week beat all pervious records for ‘missing’ post. In addition to the three above he also claimed he had ‘never received’ the fine notice and two reminders about paying his fine, a total of six ‘missing’ articles of post. It took a warrant without bail to get him into court where he promptly made a Statutory Declaration that he’d been unaware of the proceedings and his conviction and fine was thereby quashed.
To say we didn’t believe a word he said is an understatement but if he makes a ‘Stat Dec’ I have to sign it, admittedly with a stern warning about the consequences of a long time in jail if he commits perjury by making a declaration he knows to be false.

Sometimes I’m compelled by law to do things I perceive as being ‘not right’, and which I’d have difficulty justifying to anyone outside the court or legal system.