Divisional Court
| Published date | 01 November 1988 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838805200401 |
| Date | 01 November 1988 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DIVISIONAL
COURT
EVIDENCE: SPEEDING CONVICTION
Crossland vD.P.P.
Section 89(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act, 1984, provides:
"A
person who drives a motor vehicle on a road at a speed
exceeding the limit imposed by or under any enactment to which
this section applies shall be guilty of an offence." However sub-
section 2 states:
"A
person prosecuted for such an offence shall
not be liable to be convicted solely on the evidence of one witness
to the effect that in the opinionof the witness the person prosecuted
was driving the vehicle at a speed exceeding a specified limit."
It
is of course common practice in magistrates' courts for the
prosecution evidence in such cases to be based on the Police
Officer's evidence backed up by his observations of equipment
such as a speedometer, radio equipment or VASCAR equipment.
In cases such as Nicholas vPenny (1950) 114 J.P. 335, it was made
clear that evidence of this sort is capable of convicting a defendant.
Fairly recently, police forces have been training certain officers to
be able to make scientific calculations based on the measurement
of damage to vehicles, tyre burns and skid marks, and to be able
to give estimates of the speed at which vehicles have travelled.
In the present case, ([1988J The Independent, June 10), the
defendant had been driving a car, had gone through traffic lights
at a junction when they were green, accelerated across the junction
and collided with a pedestrian. She was charged with an offence
of exceeding the speed limit under sections 81 and 89 of the
Road Traffic Regulation Act, 1984;
At
her trial, two prosecution
witnesses were called.
One
gave no evidence whatsoever bearing
on the defendant's speed; the other, a Police Officer, had attended
the scene of the incident and described the road, weather and light
conditions. He found two virtually straight parallel skid marks on
the road and burn marks. He inspected the car and made
calculations which indicated that it was travelling at a speed of at
least 30 m.p.h. From skid tests using a Ford Cortina he deduced
317
Journal
of
Criminal
Law
that the speed of the car was not less than 41 m.p.h. at the start
of the skid marks. He was cross-examined about the tests and the
defence submitted there was no case to answer because the
prosecution evidence consisted of the opinion evidence of one
witness only and accordingly the defendant was not liable to be
convicted byvirtue of the provision of section 89(2). The magistrate
ruled against such a submission and finally convicted the defendant
and the defendant appealed by way of case stated.
LordJustice Bingham in his judgmentindicated there was clearly
no doubt that the evidence of two witnesses as to the unsupported
evidence of speed would be accepted so far as to support a
conviction.
If
the evidence in this case therefore did fall foul of
section 89(2), the prosecution could in the future clearly overcome
the problem by calling another officer to give his opinion that, on
the basis of the measurements and observations, the defendant's
vehicle must have been travelling at more than 30 m.p.h. before
the collision. However in his Lordship's judgment, although the
evidence in this case included a significant element of expert
opinion, it was not solely confined to the opinion of the witness but
also included in some detail objectivelydetermined phenomena, on
which the expert opinion was based. Those phenomena did not of
themselves show the vehicle was being driven at an excessive speed
but having been described in evidence they did prevent the
conviction resting merely on the opinion of one witness as to the
rate of speed.
One
further comment made by Lord Justice Bingham which
should be taken into account by both prosecution and defence
advocates is that he commended the practice of the prosecution
in this case to alert the defendant to the way in which the
prosecution case was to be proved and suggested it would be good
practice for a prosecutor, if asked, to disclose at least basic
measurements and observations made by the officer at the scene
of the incident before the date of the trial.
C. E. Bazell
Solicitor
Clerk to the Justices
North Oxfordshire
318
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