Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Police Victimisation

[ChrisBushell]

Must admit that this is a very sad affair all together.

I had a similar experience in September 2001, comig back from a Club meeting one Sunday lunchtime. Two coppers hiding on bikes, behind some bushes down near the roundabout, where we turned round to come back up a dual carraige way home.

Lots of traffic over the 300 yeards to the next roundabout then a 1 mile stretch to the next one. Yes I got to the front of the traffic and opened up the bike for the mile run. No two ways I exceeded the 70mph speedlimit and probably touched 95, but did not go over the ton.

Held up after the mile at the next roundabout by traffic and got a tap on the shoulder, pull over sonny! Interesting thing was that when I took my helemt off he realised that I was probably 10 years older than him!

Anyway he informed me that he had followed me for half a mile at a speed in excess of 100-110 mph and would be repoting me for same. Also got a producer.

Heard nothing, so thought that it had gone away, until end of Jan 2002 with a summons. Speeds in excess of 100, followed for half a mile on the A229 by Officer XXXXXXX, Court date early March, mandatory attendance as I was up for a ban.

I went and saw a Solicitor who pointed out that teh Court would always beleive a Policeman (expert witness, not subject to bias, etc) over the defendant. I spoke to a Barrister about the fact that how could I have been doing 110 for half a mile, including accelerating and braking from the 1st to the 2nd roundabouts on a piece of road barely a mile long. Their view was that with an expert witness it would be possible to dent the calim, but with a less than 25% chance of getting a result.

The good news was that the CPS got the charge wrong, they had charged me with speeding on a Motorway and it was just an A road. The Court date was two days over the 6 month limit. We sat tight went into Court and pointed out that the Charge had been wrongly presented and the case was thrown out.

I have to say that I was very lucky, I would almost certainly got at least a 4-8 week ban and 3 points, not to mention an earnings related fine.

As with the above case, it means that I would be very unlikely to trust a Policeman again without additional unrefuteable eveidence.

I suppose the moral is to drive at 10 mph below the speed limit!