Gotta love the internet, didn't know that stuff, now I'm an expert. Thought a caution was inconsequential time saver, but now see that no one should accept one without independant legal advice.

pete
Up the Tooting Popular Front

Trust me, when it comes to law... there are no experts.

A caution is an admission of guilt and effectively a conviction on your criminal record and shouldnt be entered into unless you have committed the crime and admit the offence.

Hopefully Miles will find a suitable resolution to his predicament.

Sorry to a pedant, but a simple caution is not a conviction. It is an administrative penalty which can only be offered if an offence is admitted to. Convictions refer to matters which have been heard by the Court and the defendant has either pleaded guilty to or been found guilty of the offence.
A simple caution will be recorded (in most cases) and may be disclosed as a result of a crb enquiry. It does however depend on the enforcement agency administering the simple caution.

Caution about cautions... and nor should it be offered as an inducement to admit guilt, as in "come on sunshine we got you bang to rights, just admit it was you what done it, you'll get a caution and we can all go home" job done.

pete

An adult caution is a conviction negating the court process. If the evidence is sufficient and the offence admitted as it saves time and money ultimately as Pete has already recognised. A juvenile caution is different and more an admin process.

If you're wanting to be pedantic then perhaps conviction was the wrong word to use but in real world policing an adult caution whether simple or conditional will be considered by the court and is to all intent and purpose a conviction.

That's the attitude shared by a lot of legal representatives when they hear it's a first offence Pete.

The gradings of injury from assaults are the result of case law and not an arbitary police devised system, so if your charged with gbh and you don't agree then you'll have to convince a Judge in court. I stand by my origonal statement, that in court the Judge is on one side of the bench, you and the police are both on the other side. You present the facts as you see them, putting the best possible spin on them, obviously, the prosecution presents the same evidence in the worst light, and the Judge decides if it adds up to gbh. If the police don't have a strong case, (even if this is already obvious to you and your council having seen the disclosed evidence they intend to offer in court) then your relying on Judge to decide if the police are mistaken or trying it on. If a lawyer believes in your case they should be prepared to take the case, no win, no fee, (they actually claim double their costs if they win, thats one reason it so popular!)

As an aside, you can also ask to see the evidence the police hold before deciding to accept a Caution, you don't have to admit to anything on paper, the police are not your friends, would the evidence convict you in court? but a Caution is "spent" as soon as its accepted so it doesn't have to be disclosed on most Job or insurance applications, unlike a court conviction which needs to be revealed for 5 yrs. It will however still be a problem if you want a visa to US, NZ, AUST and will be listed in a CRB check, so both have serious consequences, a not guilty result in court doesn't.

Get professional advice, most initial consultations are free, or start at citizens advice.

Anyone else have an opinion/experience?
pete

Sadly, the Police in this country are so tied up meeting KPI's that its in their long term corporate interests to charge you with as serious and as many crimes as they can resulting from a single incident, in order that they can say " We just solved 9 crimes" when in reality, only one incident occured. So if you happened to poke a Traffic Warden, you'd be lucky to get away with verbal abuse, but instead find yourself facing, many and varied charges....the ethos being, that if you throw ENOUGH shlt at the wall, some at least will stick. That then allows them the option to "plea bargain", and STILL get a conviction. ****ers all, sorry.

Agreed, well apart from the last three words. Lol

about 4 years ago a friend and myself rode down to Thruxton to watch BSB, on the way there we were silly enough to ride through a 30mph at nearly 50, not an excuse I know but just keeping up with the average flow of traffic at the time, a few miles down the rode we were pulled over having been filmed by an unmarked police bike, the policeman who pulled us over told us that they were targeting bikes because of local pressure and that he was truly sorry that he had to pull us over at all, he then explained what a section 51 was and said that it would be valid for 12 months and that if we were caught again we could have our bikes taken off of us, but otherwise if we each sign one that would be the end of it and we could be on our way.

3 months later a court summons arrived charging us each with undue care and attention, failing to obey traffic signals lack of respect to fellow road users and speeding.

After paying a solicitor £1000 between us, two of the charges were dropped and we were charged with failing to obey road traffic signals and speeding, the police said that we had caused oncoming traffic to take avoiding action and that we had crossed a solid white line, Neither myself or my friend believe that we crossed a white line, or inconvenienced any other drivers.

Sadly having been lied to by the police at the scene and having been tricked into signing a legal document admitting these offences we didn't have a leg to stand on. even if the video evidence didn't show anything of this.

This was the point in my life that I lost a lot of respect for traffic police, If I ever see a motorcycle policeman I call them, (under my breath) w****r!

I have got the video evidence if anyone wants to see how reckless I was,,, Travelling in the middle of my lane a safe distance behind an old lady driving a ford fiesta.