Forgot to update log book now I hVe a court fine

[Robinredface]

Need advice as I received. 'Further steps' letter from the magistrates court on Saturday, this was the first I'd heard of any action against me. It said I owed them £800.

With a bit of digging I found out that I've got 6 points on my license and a MS90 (failing to provide driver details etc) which relates to a speeding offence in March this year.

We moved last June and it completely slipped my mind to update the log books on our cars until April this year. The speeding was apparently in March. The correspondence all went to our old address, and nothing was forwarded on.

We paid the fine because I was worried about it escalating and affecting our remortgage next year. Obviously I realise not updating the log book was my fault, but I knew nothing about the speeding ticket.

I've heard that the ms90 is terrible for insurance as well as the fear of being banned from driving if I get any more points.

I've been told I can go to court and make a statutory declaration that I knew nothing about the proceedings. Does anyone know anything about this? I've already paid the fine, but is it possible that they could reverse this and remove the awful ms90 from my driving licence?

A statutory declaration would set aside the existing conviction and the CPS would then be able to restart a prosecution. I've never come across anyone who has paid the fine in these circumstances (really, received on Saturday and paid already?) so I can't tell you what would happen there.

You may then be able to plead guilty to the speeding offence. Typically that gets 3 points, a fine of half a week's wages and some associated costs, but depends upon the speed you were doing and the limit in place. I say "may" because it hinges upon a few things that I'm not an expert on; I don't decide on what charges are brought, so I don't need to know the technicalities.

Alternatively, you'll be prosecuted for the same offence which is known in court as a "section 172" - failing to provide driver details. If you went to trial, the CPS would almost certainly prove "good service", i.e. the right letter was sent first class to your last known address. On what you've said here, you would almost certainly be found guilty as it was your responsibility to keep the DVLA informed of your address. You'd be fined 1.5 x your weekly income, pay up to £650 trial costs, an additional 10% surcharge on your fine and get six points.

If you pleaded guilty, the fine would be reduced to 1 x your weekly income and the costs would be under £100. The surcharge percentage and points would remain the same.

You need to do the maths to work out whether the fine would go up or down and decide whether all the associated hassle is worth it to potentially remove 3 points from your licence.

jalapenos thanks, that's really useful info. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Hi @Robinredface what was the outcome of this for you? Currently faced with a similar situation and not sure what the 'right' steps to take is.

Wow, this was a long time ago!

I ended up having to go to the magistrate court (at 36 weeks pregnant) and declare that I wasn't aware of the speeding fine. They ended up dropping the charges, and couldn't enforce the speeding charge either as it was over the set amount of time, so I ended up with no points. It was stressful though.

I hope you manage to deal with it ok. I remember writing to CPS and the police too, so this could also help. I'm not sure which of these led to them dropping all the charges.