Motorist to pay legal costs even if innocent

Copied and pasted from another forum, the government are now trying to make you PAY if you are wrongly prosecuted for a driving offence or even if given a parking ticket in error! Whatever next?

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Motorists should pay up even if they go to court and win, say ministers.

Drivers who challenge motoring prosecutions should be made to pay their legal bills even if they win their case, ministers have said. The proposal would see successful defendants lose their century-old right to claim back their costs.

A change in the law would affect many of the 1.7million drivers a year who take their cases to court. Ministers are proposing that defendants lose their century-old right to claim back their legal costs.

It costs around £1,500 to fight charges of speeding, illegal parking and other motoring offences and this cost would not be fully reimbursed even if a driver was found innocent of all charges.

Peter Roberts CEO of the Drivers' Alliance said "it is fundamentally wrong for the state to financially penalise innocent drivers who are simply seeking justice against a faulty conviction".

Jeanette Miller, of Geoffrey Miller, a leading motoring law firm has raised a petition on the Downing Street website and the Drivers' Alliance urges everyone to sign it. If the principle of innocent until proven guilty is to be upheld in this country then it is imperative people who win a court case are not financially disadvantaged for defending themselves.

You can sign the petition at: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CostsRecovery/

Thank you for posting stuff like this. I find it disgusting that the government would even dare think of such a law! :-[

Signing now! Bloody idoits, its becoming closer to a police state.

Just signed the petition cant believe they would even think of pulling such a stunt!!