False Statement of Service to Vehicle
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300506 |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Journal
of
Criminal Law
were being locked up
when
they should
not
have been'. There can be
little doubt that
what
Brooke LJ described as the 'complicated pro-
visions/
and
the 'labyrinth of statutory provisions' are made
the
more
difficult to follow by being 'scattered across/ the Magistrates' Courts Act
1980
and
the Criminal Justice Act 1982/ in contrast
with
the
com-
parative simplicity of
the
position in Scotland, which is
content
with
a single
source-the
Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
If
Parliament were to undertake a'cleaning up operation', consideration
might be given to the 'deemed service' provisions of s 82(5A)
and
(5F)
of
the
Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 which permits
the
situation which
arises
when
anotice is sent to
an
address which the fine defaulter has
left. Fine defaulters are likely to be persons
under
some degree of stress
and
among those least likely to forget to tell everyone of their change of
address. The 'deemed service' rule makes it most likely that they will be
the
subjects of committal orders, through no, or little, fault of their own,
since they may in fact
know
nothing of the notice. Meanwhile, of the
estimated 22,500 fine defaulters
who
appear in the statistics,
many
no
doubt will wish to add to the steady stream of those wishing to complain
by way of an application for judicial review, which can hardly leave the
courts best pleased.
False Statement of Service to Vehicle
Formula
One
Autocentres
Ltd v Birmingham
City
Council
(1999) 163 JP 234
The appellants issued a document stating
what
checks would be carried
out
and
what
work would be done in their garage
when
a car was
accepted for a 'Formula One Master Service'. Trading Standards Officers
who
had
received a copy of this document
had
a car tested by their
expert engineer. He found 24 items which needed attention,
and
he
treated
the
car in such a way
that
he could tell after it left
the
garage
whether
the checks
and
the needed work had
been
carried out. After
the
car
had
been
dealt with by the garage, it was
returned
to
the
officers
with an invoice stating that the service in question
had
been
completed.
The officers' expert engineer found that nine of the 24 points needing
attention
had
not
been looked at
and
that
many
of
the
checks stated to
have
been
carried
out
had
not
been. The appellants were prosecuted on
an
information which charged that they: (1)
had
applied a false trade
description to goods contrary to s 1
(l
)(a) of
the
Trade Descriptions Act
1968,
and
(2) had supplied goods to which a false trade description
had
been
applied, contrary to s 1(l)(b) of
that
Act. The defendants were
convicted on
both
charges
and
appealed by way of case stated.
that
aperson is
guilty of an offence if he: (a) applies a false trade description to any
goods or (b) supplies or offers to supply
"goods
to which a false trade
description is applied. Section 2includes within
the
meaning of
the
term
'trade description'
any
method of processing. Section 3 includes
within
400
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