Criminal case study

The expert knowledge and experience of Allington Hughes Law recently saved one man from going to trial and possibly being found guilty for a crime he was falsely accused of.

Mr X, a married man with two children and a full-time job, was an upstanding member of the community.

He was travelling to work very early one morning when he passed a speed camera van by the side of the road. Mr X approached the speed van and asked the driver why he was operating very early in the morning when people are trying to get to work. Mr X stated that the driver of the van instantly became aggressive and abusive towards him.  After a verbal exchange with the driver, Mr X felt threatened so returned to his car and proceeded to drive to work, however, the driver of the van followed him. The van trailed Mr X for the entire duration of his 20 minute journey to work, which included travelling down roads with 70mph speed limits.

On arrival at work, Mr X was arrested by the police for Criminal Damage to the speed camera equipment. Mr X was extremely shocked and frustrated as he knew that this hadn’t happened. After being detained in Police Custody for a number of hours, he was questioned. It was alleged by the van driver that Mr X had punched the camera three times during the verbal exchange which damaged it. Mr X believed that if any damage was caused to the camera, it would have occurred when the driver followed him to work without packing away the camera equipment, which would have still been out of the hatch. In his interview at the Police Station, Mr X asked the Police to review the footage from the van, as he knew this would prove his innocence and disprove the drivers allegation.

The footage was not reviewed and Mr X was prosecuted for criminal damage to the van to the value of £2,915. He instructed Allington Hughes Law to represent him at Court.

The case was listed for Trial and the Court ordered that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) serve a written response to the Allington Hughes Law’s request for disclosure of the video footage, but after several weeks of chasing the CPS, there was no response.

On the day of Trial, the CPS had still not complied with their disclosure obligations but irrespective of their failures, still wanted to proceed with the Trial. Given that the CPS had failed to respond,  or address the request for important evidence,  Allington Hughes Law were left with no alternative but to apply to postpone the trial.

The CPS then produced a further statement of evidence which had been taken on the morning of the Trial to say that although the van’s camera was in operation at the time of the offence, the footage was not saved because the power was lost. Allington Hughes Law were not prepared to accept this and it was not satisfactory to announce this on the day of the Trial.

Allington Hughes Law continued to make requests that the case should be postponed to allow an opportunity to challenge this evidence. We wanted to instruct an independent expert who could determine whether or not such footage existed and how it could be retrieved.

The Court agreed to our requests and adjourned the Trial. Following this, an independent expert on speed camera equipment confirmed that the van’s equipment operated on a “fail safe” basis, meaning that even with a loss of power, all footage would be saved on a secondary hard-drive and would be retrievable to be used as evidence. Allington Hughes Law provided this information to the CPS and the case against Mr X was immediately dropped.

Had Allington Hughes Law not made applications for adjournments, relentless applications for disclosure, instructed an expert and sought to challenge and scrutinise the evidence, Mr X would have found himself standing Trial where it was his word against the word of the van driver. If he had been convicted, it would have resulted in a criminal conviction, a sentence for the offence as well as being ordered to pay a large amount of compensation.

For more information please contact the specialist advisers in our Criminal Team on 01978 29100. Alternatively, email [email protected]