I stumbled across a video on YouTube last week.
A chap called Andrew Chapple has just spent two years fighting a motoring charge that — in my honest opinion — was trumped up by a jealous police officer…
He was driving through a junction near his home. It’s a road he knows like the back of his hand, having driven it hundreds of times before.
Andrew checked his mirrors, as well as the road in both directions, pulled left and then right on to the road opposite.
An unmarked police car coming in the opposite direction then raced around the corner and pulled up close behind him. The driver pulled so close to his rear bumper that Andrew couldn’t even see the number plate of the unmarked car in his mirror.
Further up the road, on a straight stretch with no double white lines in sight, he overtook a few slow-moving cars, possibly to try to get this “boy racer” off his rear bumper… The overtakes were done safely and completely legally. The “boy racer” then followed Andrew each time and stayed glued to his bumper.
Now, if he were tempted, he could have just put his foot down and left the boy racer for dust — he was driving a rather nice Audi R8, and the boy was in a 100-horsepower diesel Hyundai. Honestly, I probably would have done exactly that! But — the reserved man that he is — he indicated left to encourage the car behind to pass him rather than sitting on his rear bumper.
It was then that the blue lights and sirens came on…
The officer pulled him over, but couldn’t “do him” for speeding… because he wasn’t speeding.
So instead, he said that Andrew had been driving “without due care and attention” — a charge that is… usefully subjective when a more specific offence can’t be pinned on someone who has upset them. It’s actually the whole point of a charge like this. A little like when the police want to search your car because you’ve offended them in some way, and then suddenly “smell cannabis”…
When Andrew finally saw the officer’s written statement, it bore virtually no resemblance to what happened at the roadside — a fact later confirmed when he got hold of the officer’s body-worn camera footage.
The statement claimed that he pulled out “without stopping”, causing the officer to “brake suddenly”. The footage showed otherwise. And the officer who claimed he “had to brake”… wasn’t even driving!
It claimed the overtake happened over “a blind hill”. It didn’t — it’s a completely straight and flat stretch of road, with no crests.
It even claimed that when the stop was over, Andrew “started his car, revved it up, and drove away” before the police left the scene. “Revved it up”… you can almost hear the envy dripping off the page of the officer’s notebook!
But Andrew had a timestamped photo, which proved that the police had left BEFORE him, while he was standing outside his parked car.
To my eye, this was a case of an officer who couldn’t find a genuine reason to stop a Motorist, so he came up with one instead.
Then it got worse.
Andrew posted his not guilty plea by recorded delivery, well within the deadline. The court said it never arrived — put down, apparently, to an “administrative error”. So… he was convicted in his absence!
Six penalty points, a £700 fine, a criminal record — for a charge he never got the chance to defend, because the court lost his response.
It took Andrew another two years, four court dates, and thousands in legal fees to finally get his day in court. When he did, the magistrates threw the whole thing out before he’d even said a word.
“No case to answer.”
This is the power of using a really good Solicitor who specialises in road traffic offences. The police evidence fell apart the moment anyone actually looked at it…
Two years of stress and inconvenience because a boy racer in a uniform was jealous of his nice car.
If this ever happens to you, don’t accept a fixed penalty for something vague like “due care and attention” without seeing the evidence first!
And whatever you send to a court, send it by recorded delivery — and keep the proof. That’s what ultimately saved Andrew and allowed him to have the trumped-up conviction overturned.
