86-year-old woman has been convicted under DVLA rules – over a car insurance error after she got one letter of her number plate wrong.
State pensioner, 86, convicted after car insurance paperwork had ‘one letter incorrect’
A state pensioner has been convicted after car insurance paperwork had one letter incorrect. An 86-year-old woman has been convicted under DVLA rules – over a car insurance error after she got one letter of her number plate wrong.
The pensioner believed she had paid for a year’s worth of cover for her Suzuki Splash with Swinton Insurance. But the insurance was deemed invalid because she wrote down an “F” on her insurance documents instead of an “S” from her number plate.
The retiree, aged 86, was convicted of keeping a vehicle without insurance in the controversial fast-track Single Justice Procedure. The driver, from York, explained after the SJP notice that she didn’t notice that the documents had an “F” instead of an “S”.
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In support of her aunt, the woman’s niece explained that the insurance paperwork had “one letter incorrect”.
She added: “No one had picked up on this. I am now helping her with her paperwork as we (the family) did not know it had got to the stage where she can’t cope.”
The pensioner was sentenced to a three-month conditional discharge instead of being issued a fine – and was required to pay a £26 victim surcharge as part of the SJP process.
If an individual or company has been charged with a minor criminal offence, the case may be decided by a magistrate without going to court. This is known as the ‘single justice procedure’.
If this applies to you, you’ll get a single justice procedure notice when you’re charged. You have 21 days from the date shown on the notice to respond.
A magistrate will make a decision on your case without your say if you do not respond to your notice within 21 days. You could be found guilty or fined.
The DVLA said: “We urge anyone who receives a letter about potential enforcement action to get in touch with us if there are mitigating circumstances we need to know about.
“A Single Justice Procedure notice will only be issued when we have exhausted all other enforcement routes, including issuing multiple items of correspondence, to which the customer can respond to DVLA with their mitigation.”
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.