Crown successfully appeals against JP’s decision to acquit ‘speeding driver’ over lack of corroboration 

A motorist who was acquitted of a speeding charge after a justice of the peace upheld a defence submission of “no case to answer” will have to face trial after prosecutors successfully appealed against the decision by relying on a 100-year-old case.

 

The justice sustained an argument that there was “no corroboration” of the measurement of the distance between the two average speed cameras which captured the driver, but the Sheriff Appeal Court allowed that appeal after ruling that there was “no need to corroborate” this fact.

 

 

Sheriff Principal Mhairi Stephen QC, sitting with Sheriff Principal Craig Turnbull and Appeal Sheriff Michael O’Grady QC, heard that the respondent David Martin was charged with driving at 81mph on a 60mph section of the A9 Inverness to Perth road in May 2017, having been captured by average speed cameras.

 

The cameras are “distance over time” speed measuring devices which record the speed of a motor vehicle by capturing images of the motor vehicle at each of two pre-determined positions on the road, digitally recording each image and the time it is captured then calculating the average speed of the motor vehicle over the distance between the two points.  

 

The justice of the peace sustained the submission that there was no corroboration of the measurement of the distance between the two points or cameras and acquitted the accused.

 

However, the Procurator Fiscal appealed against the decision, referring to the case of Scott v Jameson 1914 SC(J) 187, in which four important or fundamental facts were identified to establish a charge of speeding over a set distance, namely: (1) the point of time the car entered the stretch of road; (2) the time of exit; (3) the length of carriageway and (4) the identity of the car. 

 

It was the third fact which was the issue in this appeal.

 

 

In Scott v Jameson, the Lord Justice General was of the opinion that “each of these facts, important as each is, can be proved by one witness, if the tribunal trying the case considers that the evidence in quality is reliable”.  

 

Allowing the appeal, the appeal sheriff observed that this case was “a 21st century version” of the 1914 case.  

 

Delivering the opinion of the court, Sheriff Principal Stephen said: “The fundamental or essential facts which require to be proved are no different. In terms of Scott v Jameson which was affirmed by a full bench in Gillespie v Macmillan 1957 JC 31 there is no need to corroborate these four fundamental facts. 

 

“Accordingly, we will answer the question of law posed by the justice of the peace in the affirmative; allow the appeal and remit the case to the Justice of the Peace in Perth to proceed with the trial.”