Appeal Driving Ban

Appeal Driving Ban

If a person is convicted, at the Magistrates Court, of a road traffic offence then that person has an automatic right of appeal to the Crown Court.  There is also an automatic right of appeal from the Magistrates Court to the Crown Court if a person feels that the sentence that has been imposed by the Magistrates Court is wrong or unduly harsh.

There is also a specific procedure where the finding of the Court or the sentence imposed is clearly wrong or has been decided as a result of an obvious error, such as a failure by the Magistrates Court to receive a written plea of not guilty to the Court.  In circumstances such as this, rather than having to appeal to the Crown Court, a person can make an application to the Magistrates Court to reopen the case and set the conviction or Court order aside.  This provision is specifically provided by section 142 of the Magistrates Court’s act 1980.  The Court may reopen a case at any time where it appears to the Court that it is in the interests of justice to so.

If a person decides to appeal to the Crown Court against either his conviction or sentence, a notice of appeal must be lodged with the Magistrates Court within 21 days of the date of the hearing.  A copy of the notice of appeal will then be served on the Crown Prosecution Service.  Notification will be forwarded to the Crown Court and the case will then be reheard before a Crown Court Judge sitting with 2 Magistrates.

If more than 21 days have elapsed form the date of the Magistrates Court hearing, an appeal can still be lodged.  Before this can be done, however, an application must be made to the Crown Court for permission to appeal out of time.  Provided there is a good enough reason and there has been not too great a passage of time, our experience is that the Crown Court would usually grant the application for leave to appeal out of time.  The appeal could then be processed in the normal way.

At the Crown Court the evidence will be completely reheard afresh.  The Prosecution will call any witnesses that were called at the Magistrates Court and the defence would usually do the same.

At the conclusion of hearing all the evidence the Crown Court would then make a decision as to whether or not the appellant was guilty.  In a case of an appeal against sentence the Crown Court would have to decide whether or not the sentence had been incorrectly imposed.  

If the appeal is successful an application will be made to the Crown Court for a defence costs order.  In the ordinary course of events the Crown Court would order that, subject to assessment, an individual’s legal costs incurred both in the Magistrates and in the Crown Court should be reimbursed.  

It is worthy of note that if a person has been disqualified from driving by the Magistrates Court and seeks to appeal against that disqualification, then an application can be made to the Crown Court for suspension of the disqualification pending the outcome of the appeal.  Clearly if for example, a person’s job depends upon their continued ability to drive a motorcar then it can be very important that they are able to rive that car pending the outcome of the appeal process.

It should be noted that in any appeal against conviction or sentence, if the appeal is unsuccessful then the Crown Court has the power to reconsider the original penalty afresh.  This means that the penalty could, effectively, be increased if an individual is unsuccessful.  Having said that, provided there is merit in the appeal, even if the appeal is unsuccessful most Crown Courts will not interfere with the penalty imposed by the Magistrates Court in relation to road traffic offences.

Should an individual be giving consideration to an appeal either against conviction or sentence feel free to contact us for a no obligation, free of charge consultation when you will be advised upon the relative merits and prospects of success.  Any appeal case will be dealt with on a fixed fee basis so that you know the full cost of the intended proceedings at the outset.