Magistrates to get tough on drivers claiming hardship to avoid ban
MAGISTRATES are to crack down on motorists who claim “exceptional hardship” to avoid driving bans following a series of high-profile cases.
The sentencing council is proposing new guidance for magistrates that will toughen up the tests when they determine whether a driver facing a ban can claim “exceptional hardship”, often through threatened loss of earnings.
Celebrities who have used the defence include Steve Coogan, the comedian, Tom Kerridge, the TV chef, former England cricketer Andrew Flintoff and Gareth Gates, the pop star
However, even the specialist motoring solicitor Nick Freeman, known as “Mr Loophole”, has called for the law to be redrafted after it was revealed one unnamed motorist from the West Midlands was still allowed to drive after clocking up 54 points. The sentencing council says offending drivers should not be allowed to escape bans simply for “inconvenience or hardship”.
Instead it says it must be “exceptional hardship for which the court must have evidence – which may include the offender’s sworn evidence”.
They say courts should be cautious before accepting claims without evidence that alternatives including other means of transport are not viable.
Loss of employment should also not in itself necessarily amount to exceptional hardship, according to the sentencing council, which said the move followed requests for more guidance from magistrates.
Coogan successfully argued against a ban because he said it would prevent him from recording his next TV series. Kerridge, who amassed 12 points after a fourth speeding offence, escaped a ban in January after magistrates were told it would “destroy” his chances of filming a TV series in the US. He admitted driving at 47mph in a 40mph zone. Flintoff avoided a ban in 2014 – after reaching 12 points by hitting 87mph on the M6 – as he was about to drive for a TV show.
Gates, caught doing 47mph in a 30mph zone in Bradford in 2017, argued that he needed to drive to shows.
The most controversial was a property millionaire who claimed that having to hire chauffeurs would be an “exceptional hardship”.
He claimed that during a previous ban he went through “five or six” drivers who would not pick him up during the anti-social hours he worked. The hardship defence relates to offences where points are totted up, but Mr Freeman said: “There should be one exceptional hardship argument for one offence.” he said.
Motorists who are caught driving while disqualified face longer bans under the changes. At present, a disqualified motorist caught driving sees any additional ban run concurrently with their first. Now the second disqualification will be added to the end of the first.