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Royal Courts of Justice

The Strand

London WC2

Friday 20th February 1998

B E F O R E :

LORD JUSTICE HUTCHISON

MR JUSTICE MANCE

and

HER HONOUR JUDGE ANN GODDARD QC

(Acting as a Judge of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division)

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R E G I N A

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RAYMOND WILLIAMS

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Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of

Smith Bernal Reporting Limited

180 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2HD

Tel No: 0171 421 4040 Fax No: 0171 831 8838

(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

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Non-counsel application

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JUDGMENT

( As Approved by the Court )

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Crown Copyright

Friday 20th February 1998

HER HONOUR JUDGE GODDARD: On 17th September 1997 at the Crown Court at Cardiff the applicant was convicted of the lesser offence of driving without due care and attention on an indictment alleging dangerous driving. He was fined £100 and disqualified for 12 months. He applies for an extension of 25 days within which to renew his application for leave to appeal against sentence, such appeal being limited to an appeal against the disqualification.

The nature of the conviction means that the jury were not satisfied of the prosecution's allegations about his driving; the way that defence counsel described it in his advice was that Mr Williams may well have driven away a little briskly, unaware of the presence of a police vehicle, but had not driven in a way which fell so far below the standard of a reasonable and prudent motorist so as to be described as dangerous. The learned assistant recorder said that the jury had convicted him of bad driving.

We turn, first of all, to the consequences of a conviction for careless driving in respect of disqualification. It carries discretionary disqualification, obligatory endorsement and 3-9 penalty points, and the court must award penalty points unless it is disqualifying. By section 34(2) of the Road Traffic Offences Act 1988 if the penalty points to be taken into account on the occasion of the conviction number fewer than 12, the court may order the applicant to be disqualified for such period as it thinks fit. By section 35(1) of the same Act, if penalty points are 12 or more, the court must order disqualification for the minimum period unless there are grounds for mitigating the normal consequences. The minimum period of disqualification is 6 months if there is no previous disqualification, and 12 months if one previous disqualification is taken into account. A previous disqualification is taken into account if it is for a fixed period of 56 days or more within three years of the date of the commission of the offence, which in this case was 15th October 1996.

It is therefore important to look at the applicant's record back to October 1993. In March 1994, for exceeding the speed limit, he was disqualified for 14 days. On 22nd November, for the same offence, he was awarded 5 penalty points, and in 1996, for driving without due care and attention, that is on 22nd May 1996, he was awarded 3 points. Therefore he had existing 8 points, with any additional points for the present offence. Therefore, if under section 34(2) the court ordered 3 penalty points the disqualification would be a discretionary one. If the court ordered 4 -- and that must have been the view that the assistant recorder took because otherwise he would not speak of a "minimum period" -- he would fall to be disqualified under section 35. However, the minimum period would be 6 months, because the previous disqualification was not to be taken into account because it was only 14 days.

We have considered, first of all, the representations in the letter from the solicitor for the applicant that the judge failed to follow the procedure for dealing with a road traffic offender, did not consider disqualification under the totting-up procedure, and pointed out that it was very rare for an offender to be disqualified under the discretionary provisions for driving without due care and attention. We have also heard from Mr Williams today and heard of his natural wish to take up employment again. He has provided us with a letter from Acorn Recruitment, which says that he has worked for them in the past; future positions will, however, depend on his continued reliability, good work performance and a full driving licence. As we say, he has addressed us as to the hardship that he suffers without his licence.

We are of the view that the judge must have been imposing a disqualification under section 35(1) of the Road Traffic Offences Act 1988, otherwise he would not have referred to a "minimum period". He was entitled to take the view that he did of the driving - he had, after all, heard the evidence. He clearly awarded at least 4 penalty points, and we cannot say that he was wrong to do. His error was over the minimum period: it should have been 6 months.

The next step he had to take is to consider the question whether there was grounds for mitigating the normal consequences. Again, he was in the best position to assess that position and he found none.

Accordingly, in our view, the correct disqualification in law and on the judge's view of the driving and the applicant's personal circumstances was one of 6 months' disqualification. We therefore extend the extension of time for Mr Williams to renew his application for leave to appeal against sentence. We grant leave to appeal and we quash the term of 12 months' disqualification and substitute for it a term of 6 months' disqualification. To that extent this appeal against sentence is allowed.