Wasting police time

[jelly baby]

What would be the likely outcome facing someone charged with this offence?
It was done stupidly (on bad advice) rather than criminally or maliciously.
She has no previous convictions and is terrified that it will affect her future career as a teacher if she has a crimnal record.
Would a letter to the court/judge apologising for her stupid behaviour be helpful?
Thanks
Jelly Baby

[dh001]

Hi Jelly

I am afraid you will have to explain the circumstances of the allegation/s for an accurate answer.

[dh001]

And coould you advise whether the accused has been charged with this offence or awaiting police / CPS decision. (This is an offence where proceedings may only be instituted by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions(DPP)).

[jelly baby]

Right, she had her mobile stolen from a desk in the gym, someone told her not to tell the insurance people it was taken from a public place as she wouldn't be covered so she stupidly said she had it snatched. the police interviewed her and she insisted on the *** story. A couple of days later they spoke to her again, asking pointed questions about the identifiability of the phone. It became obvious that they had the phone so she fessed up. She immediately cancelled the claim with the insurance company. The phone was stolen by a kid in the gym who's mother found it and returned it to the gym. She wasn't trying to defraud the insurance which has been accepted by the police, so she has been charged with wasting police time. She is sick with worry and has hardly worked since January as most of her work comes to her by phone and the police still have it. Her solicitor isn't helping much. He didn't turn up to meet her when he should and is pushing for an adjournment to get reports, also hes just told her today she has to send her accounts in to him (she's self-employed). She is in court on Friday and I wonder if she needs a solicitor since she is pleading guilty.
Hope that's enough
Thanks
Jelly baby

[dh001]

Thanks Jelly.

From your disclosure (phone snatched) and the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service decided to charge your friend instead of disposing the case by way of a Fixed Penalty Notice, I would assume the police commenced a Robbery investigation as opposed to a theft enquiry, causing wasteful employment of the police. The amount of wasted time and money will be an influencing factor in any sentencing and should be evidenced by the prosecution.

Wasting Police Time is a summary only offence (Magistrates Court only) carrying a maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment and/or a level 4 fine. (Up to £2500).

If your friend is or has entered a guilty plea then the role of the solicitor would only really be to offer mitigation to try and reduce the sentence. You need to consider the cost of employing the solicitor to what reduction he could get. Your friend could conduct her own mitigation if she feels confident.

[dh001]

cont-

Caution is needed to mitigate this offence due to the motive i.e. reporting a false crime with the intent to make an insurance claim (specific offence).

[dh001]

sorry, im back.

Anyway, its difficult to give you guidance on likely sentencing without knowing the full prosecution case i.e amount of time wasted, how many officers deployed etc etc and whether there are any other aggravating features (there are several).

As a guess, a person who has no previous convictions and entered an early guilty plea with good mitigation, i would say a conditional discharge and a fairly large fine.

[dh001]

ooops not a 'conditional discharge' I meant a fairly large fine and / or a suspended sentence.

[jelly baby]

Thank you.

[peterbailey]

The police have a long standing number of complaints from me about a particular officer and a number of his friends that have caused us intimdation and harrassement for over a year including an small arson attack linked to them. We were harranged by their associates in a pub and reported it to Police and my very young son was given two fingered gestures by them which upset him. The kinds are scared to play out etc etc. The police dont do much about the complaints about drugs noise abuse etc and activeley block anti social behaviour teams from dealing with this and ask me to report direct to them so i did but on the pub cctv they found little evidence of what we said. They did not talk to me first after I made the tel callso not sure who they were looking for on the cctv which I havent seen yet, - now they offer a fixed penalty notice and if I reject it a full prosecution, I am at MP level etc and proff standards dept with polcie complaints but it seems the police want to set me up to silence me. My work involves working inside sensitive premises and they claim there is no crimial record attached to the fixed notice.
I feel bound to fight it tooth and nail and have re written to the MP - best advice please