Introduction
Why do people do it? We don’t know. But people often get more upset about driving than allegations of murder. It lead to the downfall of Chris Huhne and his wife Vicky Pryce, which indirectly brought down Constrance Briscoe.
Many people when caught speeding instead of doing the sensible thing and paying the fine, come up with ever elaborate ruses to get away with it. Very few of them succeed.
On 27th April 2016 there was another example. Ayesha Ahmed (who all the news reports referred to a ‘graduate’ for some reason) was jailed for 3 months for Perverting the Course of Justice.
Facts
Ms Ahmed was driving her BMW in a 30mph zone in July 2014, when she was twice caught going at 40mph.
Had she ‘fessed up, she’d have got 3 points and a small fine. The exact amount would have depended on her earnings, but it probably would have been less than the £450 she paid an unnamed gentleman who offered to help her use a ‘legal loophole’ to escape prosecution.
This seemed to involve providing the details of a fake man, living at a fake address, who it was claimed was driving. This seemed to fall apart quickly when the police looked at the speed camera photos and saw that a woman was driving. It also seems that that was the ninth time that that address had been used by someone claiming to be a driver caught speeding.
Ms Ahmed was later arrested and had a trial. It’s not clear what the defence was, but it seemed to be that she didn’t realise that what was happening wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t believed and she was convicted.
Sentence
Ms Ahmed received an immediate custodial sentence of 3 months. People are often surprised at how seriously the Courts take this offence, but it makes sense – it’s a deliberate attempt to escape the consequence of criminal offending.
People convicted of this invariably go to prison. In some ways, Ms Ahmed got a relatively light sentence – the usual sentence (even for those that plead guilty) is 6-12 months imprisonment. For that reason, although she undoubtedly doesn’t feel like it right now, she could consider herself fortunate that she didn’t get longer.
There is some suggestion that had she pleaded guilty she would have avoided an immediate custodial sentence.
That may have been correct, but it we would imagine that she decided the consequence of a conviction was such that it was worth rolling the dice in front of a jury, hoping for a miracle that never came.