England: Met fined after ignoring speeding inquiry from rival force

The Metropolitan Police was named as the defendant in a criminal case brought by Staffordshire Police after a Peugeot van registered to the force was caught exceeding the speed limit on the M6.

Court records show that the Met did not respond to requests to identify the driver of the vehicle, which triggered a speed camera at 1.47am on March 13. As a result, the force was prosecuted under the fast-track ‘single justice procedure’ for failing to provide information required to identify a driver.

The Met was convicted at Walsall Magistrates Court last month and ordered to pay a £1,000 fine, £120 in prosecution costs and a £400 victim surcharge.

Both the Met and Staffordshire Police later confirmed that the original speeding ticket had been cancelled in late August due to an exemption applying to the vehicle. However, by that stage, proceedings for the separate offence of failing to respond to police correspondence were already under way.

It is understood the failure arose because post was not being routinely collected or processed at the address where the van was registered.

The single justice procedure allows magistrates to determine low-level criminal cases on the papers, without a public hearing. The Met did not enter a plea and was convicted on the basis of written evidence by a magistrate identified only as Mr Barber.

The conviction came in the same week that more than 3,300 people across England and Wales were prosecuted for failing to identify a driver. The Metropolitan Police itself was responsible for 572 of those prosecutions and routinely brings such cases against motorists who do not respond to police correspondence.