Right, deep breath, here goes. Please bear in mind I am recalling this from memory so without dragging out a huge file there may be some "innaccuracies" but hopefully you will get the drift.
I had 9 points on my license. 2 from static gatso's, one from a motorway offence. One day I went into Nottingham to get a puncture fixed. Got zapped by a scamera van. NIP follows a few days later stating I was doing 42 in a 30. So I was forced to go to court to avoid a ban under totting up. Plus I really didn't believe I was speeding, certainly not 42mph. I know the area well and the limits in force. I contacted a solicitor.
At the initial court hearing my solicitor requested video evidence and statements, calibration certificates etc from the police and an adjournment while we waited for said evidence to be made available. Meanwhile what we did know was that the speed gun used was the LT120 Speedscope which was making news headlines at the time. It had appeared on a BBC documentary and has been proven to provide a speeding reading off a brick wall!! So we felt we had a good case
A new hearing date was set. Next date arrived and no evidence. We asked and were granted an adjournment. On the 3rd adjournment we finally got the copy of the video etc from the police.
On the video evidence we had (if my memory serves me correctly) 15 to 20 seconds of evidence. I was coming from behind the operator who was focussed on a BMW travelling towards him. I come into view as he his dropping the camera down. He pulls the camera up sharpish, tries to get a fix on my number plate. Gets error code 03 which is a bad lock error (
http://www.pepipoo.com/LTi2020_screen.htm). He actually gets this error twice. We calculated that in all the video evidence there was about 1 second where the camera actually got a good fix. So far we are feeling confident. To be certain we enlisted the advice of a known technical specialist in these cases. He defended himself successfully against a Speedscope charge and is active in helping others defend their cases. The report that came back was devastating. In his opinion there was enough evidence to make a conviction and this is the bit that hurts. The minimum speeding time admissible as evidence is 0.8 seconds. So in the whole video sequence, no matter how much the operator contrives to **** up getting a reading, all he requires is 0.8 of a second of evidence to convict. He had the required evidence and we felt it would be hard to convince the magistrates otherwise.
By this time I was running up a significant legal bill and we had to decide wether I wanted to plead not guilty and challenge further. This would have been a significant risk as if found guilty then I would have been in a real mess with my own costs, plus fines, plus prosectutions costs from a long drawn out court case. Bear in mind I was in middle of my marriage breakdown and seperation, finances weren't healthy so I decided to cut loose, plead guilty and plead exceptional hardship. Company car, could lose my job etc.
So in went the plea, magistrates decided not to ban me. I got 3 points and a £600 fine. Apparently if I had made the plea earlier and not kept adjourning then the fine could have been less.!!! And that's the shitter. I excercise my legal right to see the evidence the police have against me and to prepare a defence case accordingly and I get a bigger fine. Solicitors fees were £1500 so a costly lesson.
My take aways from the whole experience are:
Forget innocent until proven guilty. For these cases your are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. There have been court cases in the European Courts arguing this case. So far all cases have been unsuccessful but if one ever does get through then it will put this whole legislation into chaos.
Don't speed. If you decide to take the risk, then be prepared to accept the consequences. I have calmed my driving down considerably since though days and you know what? I don't get from A to B any slower and I am far less stressed behind the wheel.