I’m assuming that she failed a test to get herself charged in the first place.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27141835

Is her lawyer carrying his fee in that suitcase?

Of course you can deny drink driving if you have failed a breath test. You can claim the breathalyser was faulty as you hadn’t had a drink, you can claim that you’d had one drink just before being breathalyzed but weren’t over the limit, you can claim that you weren’t driving and merely a passenger, you can claim that you were fitted up by the copper, and so on.

Not the driver . not lawfully requested test . post driving consumption. Loop hole
Nick has a good track recorded at running hopeless cases in the hope that some error will crop up in the police case .

So, she’s buying her way out of it?

I wouldn’t have thought so. Your link claims that her case will be heard at Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court not Kabul Magistrates’ Court.

Unless of course you know that Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court is corrupt ?

Her daughter was charged with same offence? Does not compute.

😕

She was going to the station to pick up her daughter IIRC.

She’s being represented by Nick Freeman so that pretty much says she’s guilty 😯

Sadly, he’ll probably get her off with it 🙁

her daughter was guilty, closed case.

She had the stupidity to go and pick the daughter up whilst still over the limit.

To allow Mr Loophole his moment in court she has to deny the charge.

Mr Loophole will then dismantle the ‘booking in’ process and then the case will get thrown out as the Police will have undoubtedly made a mistake. Justice doesn’t hang on wether the defendant is guilty anymore, it’s wether a Police person has filled the paperwork in correctly.

Freeman got a senior CID woman from Warrington off a few years ago, she was (IIRC) 5 time over the limit, 3 sheets to the wind and still walked and still kept her job.

According to the link her daughter was subsequently convicted and banned from driving for two years. At the same court.

Mr Loophole will then dismantle the ‘booking in’ process and then the case will get thrown out as the Police will have undoubtedly made a mistake.

I’m not a lawyer, but I think I’ve spotted a way to avoid these cases being thrown out. I might be wrong though.

Mr loophole has highly questionable morals. Karma will come in the form of a drunk driver smashing into his expensive beemer causing life changing injuries

Perhaps then he won’t be so quick to try to get people this irresponsible off the hook

When Mr Loophole’s daughter came to him after getting a speeding ticket, he told her to suck it up and learn her lesson.

it really annoys me when people say ‘got off on a technicality’ or ‘used a loophole’
the law is the law.
using the law to not get prosecuted is the law.
not being able to afford a legal team who can use ‘technicalities’ shows just how unjust capitalism within the legal system is for the majority in this country

I guess the question is, how far do you go when ignoring police procedural errors?
Morally it’s wrong to get someone off on a technicality for a failure of process, but if these cock ups get swept under the carpet what else goes on unnoticed?

Up here, it boils down to whether or not the accused has been treated fairly, or to put it another way, has he been materially disadvantaged by the error, and that is debated/decided on a case by case basis. In the words of Lord Wheatley from several decades ago….

‘While the law of Scotland has always very properly regarded fairness to an accused person as being an integral part of the administration of justice, fairness is not a unilateral consideration. Fairness to the public is also a legitimate consideration …’

According to this view, one of the functions of the court in the criminal process is to seek to provide a proper ‘balance’, ‘to secure that the rights of individuals are properly preserved, while not hamstringing the police in their investigation of crime with a series of academic vetoes which ignore the realities and practicalities of the situation and discount completely the public interest.’

it really annoys me when people say ‘got off on a technicality’ or ‘used a loophole’
the law is the law.
using the law to not get prosecuted is the law

I see your point but there’s a difference between “I didn’t do it” and “I did it but you missed a tick box on the booking in sheet so I deserve to be let off”.

There needs to be a reasonableness test. If the speed gun was 5 years past a recalibration date or the person using it wasn’t trained then it’s worth reconsidering. But if it’s something that doesn’t have any bearing on the actual offence then I think you need to look at disciplining/training the officer who’s made the mistake but you don’t need to abandon the prosecution.

Like the motorway gantry signs that were in a slightly out of spec font. It was still a big number in a red circle over the motorway, it’s pretty obvious that it’s the speed limit. Claiming that you carried on at 85mph because the ’40’ over the lane was in a slightly too wide font is pretty daft.

Like the motorway gantry signs that were in a slightly out of spec font. It was still a big number in a red circle over the motorway, it’s pretty obvious that it’s the speed limit. Claiming that you carried on at 85mph because the ’40’ over the lane was in a slightly too wide font is pretty daft.

IIRC many years ago a driver who failed to stop at a zebra crossing got away with it because his lawyer successfully argued that the zebra crossing in question was illegal, as it had been painted with zag zig lines instead of zig zag lines. It sounds pretty daft I know but local authorities up and down the country had to repaint zig zag lines by their zebra crossings after the ruling.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/barbara-knox-drink-driving-charge-3452863 has more details, and also an article in the DM which I won’t link to which suggests he’s going to play something to do with her blood pressure.

From your link aracer :

Today Simon Pover, prosecuting, said Knox arrived at Knutsford police station and appeared to be “intoxicated”.

Knox later gave a blood sample which produced a reading of 85mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

Now I’m prepared to accept that your judgement and reactions are impaired with 85mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood, but 85 isn’t much more than 80, and if you are deemed capable of driving with 80mg then I very much doubt that you would ‘appear to be intoxicated’ with 85mg.

It doesn’t add up imo.

I see your point but there’s a difference between “I didn’t do it” and “I did it but you missed a tick box on the booking in sheet so I deserve to be let off”.

The difference being that only the first will lead to a conviction not being recorded?

There is already a “reasonableness test” as you describe it.

If as Ernie says the readings are 85 (limit 80) then it’s a very close thing. If you were inclined to believe that you had not done something wrong (and could afford it) you would contest it.

Taking a look at the how many beers thread a few there who think they are clear might not be, and in the situation of your kid was done for drink driving and needed collecting and you had only 1 drink etc. would you go and pick them up?

It’s probably another reason for a zero limit to remove ambiguity.

and in the situation of your kid was done for drink driving and needed collecting and you had only 1 drink etc. would you go and pick them up?

no, taxi’s or other friends and relatives are available

Knox later gave a blood sample which produced a reading of 85mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The legal limit is 80mg.

which is likely to be lower than her peak as the police probably faffed about for a bit before deciding to breath test her

Today Simon Pover, prosecuting, said Knox arrived at Knutsford police station and appeared to be “intoxicated”.

could include the smell of booze or just getting unreasonably testy with the police at the station

I guess the question is, how far do you go when ignoring police procedural errors?
Morally it’s wrong to get someone off on a technicality for a failure of process, but if these cock ups get swept under the carpet what else goes on unnoticed?

What defence lawyers are able play with is jurors don’t know what ‘reasonable doubt’ really means. These technicalities and failures don’t really need to exist but if you say that they do, even if you provide no evidence and every witness you question say the technicality you are rattling on about doesn’t exist…. the ‘technicality’ gets lodged in the jurors mind.

I was on a jury where the defence had held their hand up to pretty much all of the allegations but kept asking questions about how the suspect had been interviewed and the notes that were taken. Particularly about how the interview wasn’t taped like it is one TV cop show. Every witness he raised this with pointed out that most interviews aren’t taped like they are on the telly and that theres nothing unusual about that. But he kept raising it again and again.

As far as the most of the jury were concerned the guy in the dock had definitely done all the things he was accused of, but they were somehow left feeling that he’d also been fitted up, and kept mulling over the use of tape and their surprise it wasn’t used like on the telly – and this to them was ‘reasonable doubt’. Enough of them felt like that to give a not guilty verdict. Not because they felt the guy was innocent but because the police somehow needed to be taught a lesson.

In principle most of the people on the jury couldn’t distinguish between a lawyers question (cleverly framed as a statement) and the witness’s answer and were taking both to be ‘evidence’ and the lawyers questions were longer than the witness’s answers.

If you’re going to have a legal limit, you have to draw the line and stick to it, especially if the driver, like Mrs Knox, appeared intoxicated.

As said above, there will inevitably be much faffage before a blood test can be taken, so it could at least a couple of hours since she got into the car and started driving.

A friend work in the same building as a solicitors firm that has customers/taxi drivers etc who want to contest speeding etc charges relating to their driving.

Alot cant read the large clear sign on the door that isn’t the Solicitors office and walk straight in. Workers cars get dented by visitors in the large carpark by visitors, occassionally there will be a driver doing a handbrake turn in the carpark.

To cap it all some of the visitors look and sound rude.

On another note- anyone aged 80 who would get behind the wheel even after half a lager needs to have a hard look at themselves whether she gets off or not.

Remember the Sergeant who was suspended/prosecuted as a suspected drink driver fell roughly into the cell? (She’d been found sleeping pissed in her car at the side of the road).