Louis HARDY CHARLEBOIS v DPP
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE HOOPER |
| Judgment Date | 14 January 2003 |
| Neutral Citation | [2003] EWHC 54 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/4005/2002 |
| Date | 14 January 2003 |
[2003] EWHC 54 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand London WC2
Mr Justice Hooper
CO/4005/2002
The CLAIMANT appeared in person
MR DUNCAN PENNY (instructed by CPS, CASEWORK DIRECTORATE, 50 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON, EC4M 7EX) appeared on behalf of the DEFENDANT
This is an appeal by way of case stated from a decision made by Mr Recorder Lafferty and two lay justices sitting in the Crown Court at Blackfriars.
On two occasions a motor vehicle with a particular registration mark was detected by automatic cameras to be exceeding the speed limit. On another occasion a vehicle carrying the same registration mark was detected by an automatic camera failing to stop at a red light. The appellant accepts that he was the owner/keeper of the vehicle on all three occasions. He was required, pursuant to section 172(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, to provide details of the driver on each occasion. There was no issue before the Crown Court that the appellant had received the appropriate notices and that he had refused to provide the information.
He submitted to the Crown Court that he had no case to answer because section 172(2) of the Act was an infringement of his human rights as guaranteed by article 6 of the Convention in that it required him to supply information identifying the driver. That submission was not accepted by the court. The case for consideration by this court is whether or not the Crown Court erred in law in ruling that the appellant had a case to answer in these circumstances.
Section 172 provides as follows:
"(2) Where the driver of a vehicle is alleged to be guilty of an offence to which this section applies-
(a) the person keeping the vehicle shall give such information as to the identity of the driver as he may be required to give by or on behalf of a chief officer of police, and
(b) any other person shall if required as stated above give any information which it is in his power to give and may lead to identification of the driver.
"(3) A person who fails to comply with the requirement of subsection (2)(a) above is guilty of an offence."
It was of that offence that this appellant was convicted.
Section 12(1) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 provides that a statement produced by a person pursuant to section 172(2) stating that he was the driver may be accepted by the court as evidence that the person was the driver of the vehicle on that occasion.
It is submitted by the appellant that the creation of the offence under subsection (3), in so far as the offences of speeding and going though a red light are concerned, is a disproportionate response to the problem of maintaining road safety. He submits that the proper way to approach these kind of cases is to proceed against the keeper.
Proceeding against the keeper would cause considerable practical difficulties if it was intended to endorse the keeper's licence or disqualify the keeper from driving. In any event that particular argument has been considered by the Right Honourable Ian Kirkwood in Brown v Stott [2001] 2 WLR 817, at page 863 (Privy Council). On behalf of the respondent, it is submitted that there is no merit in this appeal because of the decision in that case and the decision of the Divisional Court (Rose LJ and Sullivan J) in Director of Public Prosecutions v Wilson [2002] RTR 37.
I turn to Brown v Stott. The defendant in that case was suspected by the police of having driven with excess alcohol in her blood. At the police station she was required to say who had been...
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