Author's experience: He was firing the radar through trees, posts, signs and parked cars. I took photos intending to take it up with the court.
At the time the officer said ‘he’d run out of tickets and I’d get it in the post’.
I did receive the ticket … many, many weeks later!
As soon as I received it I wrote to Wellington, explained the situation and asked formally for a court hearing. They refused to withdraw the allegation but more importantly ignored the request for a court hearing.
I wrote again, no reply at all this time. The fine had simply been forwarded to Ministry of Justice for collection.
I explained to MoJ that I had every right to dispute this in court and as I’d asked for a hearing it needed to go back to police. I filled out the relevant form and waited.
The police refused the court hearing claiming they’d ‘not received the request‘ and there we ended up, in an endless circle so frustrating that I would swear it’s been designed that way to make any rational person give up. I sent letter after letter including copies of the letters requesting the court hearing … ‘nope! didn’t receive em, take it up with the postal service’
Like a dog with a bone or a completely irrational person, I chose to fight on and after several years of complaining I finally had a call in response to another formal complaint to Wellington from Sergeant Bevan Sheffield-Cranstoun who seemed quite amicable. Although the time it has taken to get a response is entirely due to the actions by the police he felt it may be out of time but said that ‘if I were to contact MoJ and ask for it to be returned, the police wouldn’t object to a hearing.’
I contacted MoJ who said: ‘In regards to the speeding ticket for exceeding 50km/h I cannot send this back to the police myself but if you have something in writing from them saying they are happy for us to forward it back to them you can ask for them to send a withdrawal request through to us.”
So I could see light at the end of the tunnel. I forwarded this back in anticipation of my day in the courts and it was taken up by a Sergeant Barney Soutar … it turns out that the light was a train!
Despite the promise by Sheffield-Cranstoun, Soutar replied: ‘The difficulty for you with this notice is that you never actually made a formal request for a court hearing despite the fact you believe you did. The Court obviously cannot and will not grant you an application on that basis . My instruction to you was when it was returned to us by them, we would action your request.
‘The matter is currently with the Court where it belongs. There is no legal basis under section 78(b) of the Summary Proceedings Act 1957, to have this returned to us by the Ministry of Justice.
‘Given Police have no jurisdiction over the matter, I will not respond to any further correspondence from you.
MoJ cannot send the case back to police, the police have to request it. Now, the police won’t request it because obviously it’s not in their interests to do so!
That reason again!
I feel as though I’m either suffering from the early onset of dementia or someone’s been spiking my tea with mushrooms.
‘The difficulty for you with this notice is that you never actually made a formal request for a court hearing despite the fact you believe you did’
I have copies of the letters I sent, FORMALLY requesting a court hearing in response to a ticket that arrived many weeks after the event!
And now Souter who is, or was The Police Prosecutor refuses to respond to any further communications.
Is this what we expect from those who are employed to best serve our communities?
All I asked for was a court hearing as is my right.
