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Lord Chief Justice questions on-the-spot fines

On-the-spot fines have played an enormous part in creating criminals out of otherwise law-abiding British people.

Lord-Judge Vanessa Kelly – the young mum issued with a fixed penalty notice for littering when she threw bread to the ducks in a park – and Michael Mancini – the businessman fighting Ayr Council over an FPN received when he blew his nose in his car while stopped at traffic lights – are two examples we have covered, but there are many more who have silently paid-up having been fined for pointless and pernicious non-crimes.

It is therefore with some cheer that we see that the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, has today in the Telegraph admitted that he is "troubled" by the increased use of on-the-spot fines, saying:

"I welcome the review launched by the Lord Chancellor and I hope that it will lead to material changes in the way fixed penalty notices, cautions and conditional cautions are used."

This change can't come soon enough. As the Magistrates' Association recently warned, police cannot be trusted to hand out summary justice and will act as "judge and jury" if given powers to issue more on-the-spot fines.

We will follow the results of Jack Straw's review with interest.

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Home
  • Spartan

    This review has nothing to do with cases like Vanessa Kelly or Michael Mancini. lt is entirely aimed at on the spot fines for offences that the Lord Chief Justice deems as serious crimes and hence should be dealt with in court.
    Fines for feeding ducks, blowing your nose etc etc will continue unabated and no doubt added to. There will be no help from any of the authorities in reducing this state operated highway robbery of citizens.
    lt is left to the individual to either fight it or simply accept it.
    l have found a particularly novel way of dealing with wardens(whatever variety) and C3PO’s … speak to them in a foreign language. They have no idea of what to do.
    Just learn a few simple phrases, look bemused as you ‘fail’ to understand anything they say and enjoy the torment that they go through.
    l use Bulgarian along with some wonderful Bulgarian insults that sound quite friendly to English speaking ears …. ‘chickagea’ is one of them. ;-)

  • http://archipelago-of-truth.blog.co.uk/ Technomist

    Very interesting. I wonder how cuts in police numbers will affect the police’s ability to sustain these attempts to take over the role of the judiciary.