are the police allowed to withold evidence

[sh1985]

are the police allowed to withold evidence from you, if you are the accussed?

[sara3]

in a word, no. there are strict rules for disclosure and you (or your legal rep) should receive an evidence bundle before your hearing.

[kinell]

they do it all the time,

many forces will not divulge details relating to speeding offences such as photographs / calibration certificates etc until the case goes to court,

they have all this evidence to hand but choose to assume you are guilty until proved innocent (the oppostite of the key principal in english law) and allow the conditional offer to expire,

fight this....

i was photographed speeding some years ago and they were kind enough to send one black and white photograph showing my car clearly short of a 40 mph sign,

i replied stating that the photograph showed me outside of the restricted area and did they have any proper evidence.......well after the conditional offer period expired they issued a summons enclosing two very clear photographs...one showing my car as previous and one showing my car past the 40 mph sign,

because of their policy of witholding evidence i was then potentially liable for a fine of up to six points and many more pounds instead of the conditional 3 points and �60,

i attended court to explain this and the magistrate agreed with my complaint and as i pleaded guilty in view of the evidence eventually received i was able only to receive the 3 points and 60 ..

but it cost me half a day away from work

oh and by the way i slipped up in one of those revenue producing sneaky variable speed limits road works where for no apparent safety reason the speed changes over a long stretch several times from 40 to 50 to 40 to 50 and so on.... i was doing 49 mph

[New Judge]

Your answer really only serves to confuse the issue raised by sh1985, kinell.

The police and the CPS are not allowed to withhold evidence against you which they have to support charges they have laid. They must disclose all the evidence they have, whether or not they intend to use it, so that you may decide on your plea and mount an appropriate defence if necessary.

Offers of fixed penalties such as that you describe are not criminal charges and are not made by the police or the CPS. They are made by the local Safety Camera Partnership. The offers are intended to be mutually beneficial to avoid costs and time. In taking up an offer the driver accepts the Partnership�s version of events in its entirety in exchange for a much reduced penalty. There is no presumption of guilt as you seem to suggest as you are not obliged to accept the offer. In fact, the question of guilt is left entirely to you

Most Partnerships will provide photographs to the Registered Keeper (RK) to assist in driver identification. They are not obliged to do so and those photographs, at that stage, are not provided as evidence to support a prosecution. They may or may not be used if the matter later comes to court and then they must be disclosed in the usual way.

Should either the driver or the RK wish to dispute any part or all of the evidence against them they are free to ask for a court hearing where they can put the dispute before magistrates. At this stage the usual rules of evidence apply. There is no facility within the fixed penalty process to query or dispute evidence (that is what the courts are for) and that seems to be where your misunderstanding lies.

As you demonstrated in your example, although you were guilty of the offence the magistrates used their discretion to impose the same reduced penalty that would have applied had you accepted the fixed penalty.