Court prosecution reopening - train notice of fine & collection order

[CWTW]

I’m not sure where to start. In 2021 I had deductions from my salary listing the reason as a court ordered fine which was obtained by someone else using my details (I’m guessing) on 28/11/2018. I called around and paid the balance, £418 and asked to appeal on the grounds of having no idea what it was regarding. I didn’t know at the time but the fine details were wrong, the address, date of birth and first name were close but not correct.

The court ordered fine and collection order was issued under that wrong name and date of birth. Only now that the court has agreed to list for an application to reopen the case, I have seen this document with the wrong details.

I’ve asked for more details, a time, a description of the traveller, a signature, anything surrounding the fine that will help me prove it wasn’t me. It’s so long ago, I can’t just say it wasn’t me because I doubt they would have kept CCTV. I was at a spa that day and night but without knowing the time of the fine, it’s hard to prove it wasn’t me because the fine location was just over an hour from where I was so it’s not impossible to travel to and from.

I’m not sure what evidence I can give to justify the court reopening the case because I don’t have anything to go off, being that I don’t have any ideas apart from the date and station. I am also annoyed that a court ordered fine can be issued without validating any of those details and I’m guessing the court just decided “close enough” and assigned it to me.

I’m not sure what to do and how to proceed.

 

[30907]

As we are talking about an event from 6 years ago, please could you give a little more detail, with approximate dates?
Eg when you first heard about the fine, what steps you then took to resolve things, and what you have done recently to get the case reopened. Did you, for example, make a Statutory Declaration?
What offence were you found guilty of?

Sorry, lots of questions - welcome aboard

PS - there's no guarantee you will get a further reply tonight, please be patient.

 

[pedr]

Who did you speak to in 2021? Where a person has been convicted of a crime in the magistrates' courts without being aware of the case (because they didn't receive the letters which explained the charge, and were convicted in their absence) there is a process to make a statutory declaration of ignorance of proceedings. This is automatically accepted if it's made within 21 days of finding out about the conviction, because it's a statement effectively under oath that the defendant did not know about the case. It doesn't sound as if you made that declaration, but used some other process. What was that?

If you'd made a statutory declaration you wouldn't be appealing, as such. The initial conviction would be nullified and the prosecution would start again, so it would be for the train company to bring evidence to convince the court that you were guilty, if you pleaded not guilty. There is some evidence that it might have been you, since the person gave a name, address, and date of birth which were (it seems) close to yours, but this might not be conclusive, particularly if the train company has a description of the person, and that doesn't match you. But it's not clear what the next hearing is, so more details about that will help to give you more advice.

 

[John Palmer]

Beaten to it by @30907's and @pedr's posts above, but I have the same questions as them. Important to have details of your interactions with the court, as these could have a bearing on whether the court will agree to re-open the case so long after you apparently first became aware of it.

 

[CWTW]

Who did you speak to in 2021? Where a person has been convicted of a crime in the magistrates' courts without being aware of the case (because they didn't receive the letters which explained the charge, and were convicted in their absence) there is a process to make a statutory declaration of ignorance of proceedings. This is automatically accepted if it's made within 21 days of finding out about the conviction, because it's a statement effectively under oath that the defendant did not know about the case. It doesn't sound as if you made that declaration, but used some other process. What was that?

If you'd made a statutory declaration you wouldn't be appealing, as such. The initial conviction would be nullified and the prosecution would start again, so it would be for the train company to bring evidence to convince the court that you were guilty, if you pleaded not guilty. There is some evidence that it might have been you, since the person gave a name, address, and date of birth which were (it seems) close to yours, but this might not be conclusive, particularly if the train company has a description of the person, and that doesn't match you. But it's not clear what the next hearing is, so more details about that will help to give you more advice.

It’s not a statutory declaration as too long as passed for that to be processed. The case has to be reopened which is why I have a hearing to list an application to reopen the case. I only became aware of the fine in 2023 (I realised I put 2021 by mistake in my initial post) when money was being deducted from my earnings but nobody could tell me why because my name and date of birth didn’t bring any results. All I knew was that the fine was issued by Bedford Magistrates. I called them to ask for more info where I was told of the amount and what it was for. I paid it immediately and asked to appeal because I was certain it wasn’t me. I didn’t hear anything back so I kept calling over a few months to appeal. In January 2024 I sent an email asking to reopen the case because calling wasn’t helpful and I wanted a paper trail. February 2024 I received a reply telling me to call the magistrates again. I kept getting sent back and forth and chased via email multiple times (more than 8) until this Monday when they informed me:


“Our legal team have agreed to list for an application to reopen.


The matter will be listed for the Magistrates to deal with this case.

Your attendance is required at this hearing.”

I asked what details I needed and they suggested I bring evidence, so I asked what the details were surrounding the fine so I could provide the right evidence. At that point, I was sent a copy of the notice of fine and collection order and saw the name, dob and address is wrong. I don’t have anymore information other than the fine was given at Shenfield on 28/11/2018. I still do not know what time or where the person was travelling to. I asked for a description and signature so I could prove it’s not my signature and wouldn’t have been me but there’s not much information to work with.

 

[pedr]

Do you know what the precise offence was? Which particular crime was alleged? This might not be spelled out in full on a fine notice as that might have a short-hand. You need to know which specific law you were convicted of breaking.

Do you know which train company brought the prosecution?

 

[John Palmer]

From the sound of it, your initial interactions with Bedford Magistrates Court were by phone. Did you keep a note of each occasion on which you telephoned the court? If not, you should try to compile a list of when you made such calls to which you can refer at the hearing of your application, to which you should also take copies of all the emails between you and the court. The purpose of doing so is to demonstrate your diligence in attempting to get the case re-opened. It is most unfortunate that you didn't follow the statutory declaration procedure, as that would have ensured a re-opening of the case had you made the declaration in good time. When and how did you discover that you could have made such a declaration? Whilst under no obligation to provide legal advice, magistrates court staff must encounter so many cases where people have been convicted without their knowledge that it would have been good policy to instruct staff to give at least some indication of where a person can find out how to challenge a conviction imposed in such a case.

It appears that the success of your application to re-open the case must now depend upon your ability to persuade Bedford Magistrates to do so by exercise of their powers under Section 142(2) Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, which is as follows:

“Where a person is convicted by a magistrates’ court and it subsequently appears to the court that it would be in the interests of justice that the case should be heard again by different justices, the court may, . . .so direct.”

In reaching a decision on your application the test the magistrates must apply is whether or not it is in the interest of justice to do so. Normally this is where the court has made a mistake, either in law or by failing to take relevant information into account. Such a mistake needs to be one made by the court, but this can include a failure to take account of relevant information that was unknown to the court at the time its decision was made. Possibly the strongest point you can make on this basis is that the court decided to convict without knowledge that the address, date of birth and first name attributed to you were incorrect and that, had the court been aware of these errors, such knowledge should have put it on inquiry as to whether the correct defendant had been identified. You might say to the magistrates that these errors, although unknown to the court at the time it convicted, are sufficient to bring your case within the scope of Section 142(2) and that consequently it would be in the interests of justice for them to direct a re-hearing of you case. This plus a demonstration of the diligence of your initial attempts to get the case re-opened may persuade the Magistrates to grant your application.

Since you were convicted by Bedford Magistrates it follows that the court fine in question was not imposed at Shenfield on 18 November 2018. Instead this is likely to be the original incident on the railway that ultimately led to your prosecution, and may have involved the charging of a penalty fare, which, technically, is not a 'fine' though commonly regarded as being such.

It will also be helpful if you can tell us under what legislation you have been prosecuted (e.g. a railway byelaw or Section 5 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889) and the means by which the proceedings against you were started, as it is just possible that yours is a case where the operator concerned has started the prosecution against you by means of the wrong procedure.

 

[some bloke]

Hello @CWTW,

I'm sorry you're in this situation - it may be much more hopeful than you think.

To add to the points and questions from @30907, @pedr and @John Palmer:

A key to some of this may be to get the company on board, or at least less opposed to what you want.

Are you sure you're out of time for the declaration, and that you have no grounds for the court to grant an extension for one?

This may be of interest:

"Usually, this period of time would be from the date that you obtained details of the case against you from the court"

Court Fines and Statutory Declarations

If you have been convicted of an offence without your knowledge (usually due to a change of address) and only became aware when you received a Further Steps Notice or were contacted by an enforcement company you can apply to the Magistrates Court for a Section 14 Statutory Declaration. This will...

bailiffadviceonline.co.uk

If you don't yet know or have only recently found out key details of the conviction, an SD could be in time.

Or perhaps there might be grounds for an extension if, for example, a misunderstanding between you and court staff led to you thinking you were out of time for an SD when you weren't.

The SD form says people can ask for help with it at a magistrates' court, which might be seen as implying you could reasonably expect some level of help in some relevant matters.

Discretion on an extension is for the magistrates, and speculation from court staff or others may not be useful. It may be worth having a go, depending on what you found out when, and perhaps other factors.

I may be being a bit dim, but I'm not clear who sent the email which mentions "our legal team". Is the company applying for the case to be reopened? They may not be keen to oppose a new hearing, or keen to get you convicted. The passage of time could help you rather than work against you - how could they provide reliable witness testimony that it was you?

If a hearing is to go ahead, you can keep communicating with the company before then. You could even meet their representative at the court building before the hearing and have a chat, after which they may agree that the court should hear the case again and that they won't offer any evidence so the case is dismissed.

If the company agrees that it's in the interests of justice for the case to be reopened, or doesn't argue strongly against you, that would seem helpful for a decision in your favour by magistrates at this first hearing.

I also wonder if something which the company says could be helpful to your application, in the event that you ask the court to grant an extension for an SD.

I don't remember any cases on this forum where someone made an SD and the company bothered to prosecute again, even where the passenger was clearly guilty of an offence - when the company agreed to settle the case out of court.

If that indicates a general reluctance to dig up the old papers and take the person to court again, a company might be similarly reluctant, even for people who unlike you are clearly guilty, to try for a conviction where the case has been reopened under s.142.

In any case, companies often settle out of court, and people convicted in their absence may well only have been prosecuted in the first place because there was no answer to the company's letters.

That may well apply to "your" case - that the company was never keen to prosecute the person who was stopped.

The few hundred quid you paid is the sort of money someone would pay after a pretty minor offence, so this is unlikely to be a case the company is very bothered about, or has ever been.

If you appear vaguely credible to the company, they may well rather spend their time on something other than trying to work out if you're telling the truth and getting into a silly argument.

If the company thinks you are more than vaguely credible, they may be keen to help.

One bit to think about could be what exactly to say about why you paid up when it wasn't you.

 

[CWTW]

I have enough in my call logs, texts and emails to show I have been chasing since I found out. I paid because if I didn’t there’s a chance I could have been arrested, had a CCJ etc and I travel to the US often for work, if I had even been arrested - I could be denied entry.

The company is Greater Anglia.

I’ve attached the documents they sent but this is all the information I have, I’m currently trying to get more.

According to court staff, it’s too late for a statutory declaration.

 

[some bloke]

Just to be clear:

1. Does the blanked-out part say you have a hearing date, and if so when is it?

2. Are you in touch with the train company at all?

3. When did you find out you had been convicted?

4. When did you find out what the alleged offence was?

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I asked what details I needed and they suggested I bring evidence, so I asked what the details were surrounding the fine so I could provide the right evidence. At that point, I was sent a copy of the notice of fine and collection order and saw the name, dob and address is wrong. I don’t have anymore information other than the fine was given at Shenfield on 28/11/2018. I still do not know what time or where the person was travelling to. I asked for a description and signature so I could prove it’s not my signature and wouldn’t have been me but there’s not much information to work with.

Going back to this point, surely the place to start is that the money has been collected from the wrong person. So make sure that you have proof that your name, date of birth and address are as you assert and not as was given to the railway.

In practice that means taking your driving licence and/or passport with you. It might be worth finding bank statements and so on as well: if these could be old enough to show where you lived at the time of the offence (I.e. not the address that the offender gave to the railway) that would be even better.

 

[AlterEgo]

I have enough in my call logs, texts and emails to show I have been chasing since I found out. I paid because if I didn’t there’s a chance I could have been arrested, had a CCJ etc and I travel to the US often for work, if I had even been arrested - I could be denied entry.

There is no CCJ involved here. That’s a county court judgment for civil matters. What you have is a criminal conviction, and you’ve had one for years.

 

[CWTW]

There is no CCJ involved here. That’s a county court judgment for civil matters. What you have is a criminal conviction, and you’ve had one for years.

It’s not a criminal conviction. I’m a psychologist and work with children and young adults, my most recent DBS is completely clear. In any such case, if I didn’t pay it could have impacted my credit score and I could have been arrested, both outcomes are far worse than paying a £418.

Just to be clear:

1. Does the blanked-out part say you have a hearing date, and if so when is it?

2. Are you in touch with the train company at all?

3. When did you find out you had been convicted?

4. When did you find out what the alleged offence was?

The hearing is next month.

I’m not as of yet, but the magistrates have contacted Greater Anglia to reach out to me as the details don’t match and they were unable to answer my questions.

I found out in June 2023 and have been trying to appeal ever since. It was Monday of this week I have seen official information of the offence, all I had been told before is I had an outstanding train fine from 28/11/2018, enforced by the court.

Going back to this point, surely the place to start is that the money has been collected from the wrong person. So make sure that you have proof that your name, date of birth and address are as you assert and not as was given to the railway.

In practice that means taking your driving licence and/or passport with you. It might be worth finding bank statements and so on as well: if these could be old enough to show where you lived at the time of the offence (I.e. not the address that the offender gave to the railway) that would be even better.

This is a good idea, thank you!

 

[Hadders]

It’s not a criminal conviction.

From the paperwork you've uploaded it appears to be a conviction under Section 18 of the Railway Byelaws. This is a criminal conviction, it is not a civil matter.

That said, convictions under the Railway Byelaws are not normally entered into the Police National Computer which is why it won't normally show on a DBS check. A criminal conviction is a matter of public record and organisations do have other ways of finding out about them other than a DBS check.

 

[John Palmer]

The 11 April 2019 Notice of Fine refers to a 'railway bye-law' offence. This indicates that you were convicted of an offence under Byelaw 18, as accurately paraphrased by the 2019 Notice. This takes you outside the large class of people recently discovered to have been prosecuted by means of an incorrect procedure, so you have no redress by that route.

The legislative provisions relevant to making a statutory declaration that you had no knowledge of criminal proceedings against you are Sections 14 and 16E Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and Part 44 Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. You can find these here and here.

Section 14 MCA 1980 applies if the case against you was commenced by summons, whilst section 16E applies if it was commenced by means of the single justice procedure. You should ask the court to clarify which of these procedures was used, so that you know which of these sections is applicable, although both sections contain substantially the same provisions about when a statutory declaration can be made and the consequences of delay in doing so.

If you had made such a statutory declaration within 21 days after you first became aware of your conviction then the magistrates were bound to re-set the case to its starting point. But a failure to make such a declaration within that 21 day period is not necessarily fatal. Both Sections 14 and 16E of the 1980 Act say that the court can accept a declaration made more than 21 days after the conviction came to the defendant's knowledge if “it appears to the court that it was not reasonable to expect the accused to serve that statutory declaration within that period” (Section 14 of the 1980 Act).

I know of nothing in the legislation that sets an end point after which the court must refuse to consider whether it should accept a declaration made after expiry of the 21 day period when the conviction came to the defendant's notice. That means that the communication from Vicki you have uploaded is incorrect in saying that the court is “unable to process” a statutory declaration in your case.

This means that you can still make such a declaration and submit it for the court's consideration in the way the legislation sets out – the details are set out in Paragraph 44.2 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. The court may still decide that it will refuse to extend the time for making the declaration, but it cannot disregard the declaration once it has been served in accordance with the Rules.

The court's decision on whether to accept a late declaration depends on the reasonableness of the reasons for the delay. You should not be penalised for failing to make a declaration after receiving the communication from Vicki, because this incorrectly encouraged a belief that the court would not 'process' such a declaration and that it would therefore be pointless for you to make one. That then leaves the question of what happened in the period before you received the message from Vicki, i.e. after you learned of your conviction and after you learned about the statutory declaration procedure for securing a re-hearing of your case. Was there a good reason for not serving such a declaration within the usual 21 day period? An explanation of why that was not done and why it would be unreasonable for you to have been expected to do so needs to be set out in any statutory declaration you now make and serve.

Belatedly making a statutory declaration of your ignorance of proceedings is a separate route towards re-opening your case from the application under Section 142(2) which I described in my previous post. The two routes are not mutually incompatible, so can be pursued simultaneously. The court can deal with both at the hearing it has now agreed to list. The tests applied are different: in the application under Section 142(2) you seek to persuade the court that the interests of justice require the case to be re-opened, whilst in the case of the statutory declaration you must try to convince the court that you could not reasonably be expected to have made the declaration within 21 days of discovering your conviction.

Making the requisite statutory declaration and serving it on the court now gives you the opportunity to marshal and submit a written record of the evidence supporting your request to have the case re-opened. It gives you the opportunity to put written evidence before the court of the misleading claim that it was 'unable to process' a statutory declaration, but you will also need to account for any delay in making such a declaration before you received that misleading communication.

Edited to add that a template for the appropriate form of statutory declaration is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-declaration-of-ignorance-of-proceedings. It is a template you can adapt to suit the requirements of your case, and you can add extra pages to it setting out additional information as necessary. You can also attach to it copies of relevant documentation such as the ''unable to process" message to you. Such copies are technically referred to as 'exhibits' to the declaration.

 

[WesternLancer]

I can see some expert advice being given here. One thing occurrs to me to ask is that the op mentions their job and profession. Do you have access to any legal help via a trade union or professional body that could assist in dealing with this and the court etc?

 

[Puffing Devil]

At that point, I was sent a copy of the notice of fine and collection order and saw the name, dob and address is wrong.

This doesn't look like a faulty conviction, it looks like a faulty collection.

If the conviction is under a different name, DOB, and address, then it's not @CWTW, and there is no need to re-open the case. What does need to be done is to look into the collection activity and establish that @CWTW is not the defendant in this matter and should not have paid the fine.

Attending the court on the given date may be the best way to start. Taking your passport and/or driving licence to show your identity would be useful.

If the court does want to reopen and take a plea, then "Not Guilty" is the correct way to go.

As for sorting out the collection mess - it's not something I have any experience with.

 

[30907]

The other piece of evidence you could offer would be to show that you were unlikely to have been at Shenfield Station on the date concerned. However, that's a big ask compared with showing that you are not the person convicted.

 

[AlterEgo]

It’s not a criminal conviction. I’m a psychologist and work with children and young adults, my most recent DBS is completely clear. In any such case, if I didn’t pay it could have impacted my credit score and I could have been arrested, both outcomes are far worse than paying a £418.

As others have said, this is a criminal matter which is why it’s being handled by the magistrates’ court. However as @Puffing Devil says, this may be an error by the collections company rather than the court.

You may have a legal responsibility to keep your employer and/or regulating body in the loop about this matter.

Do keep us updated.

 

[CWTW]

As others have said, this is a criminal matter which is why it’s being handled by the magistrates’ court. However as @Puffing Devil says, this may be an error by the collections company rather than the court.

You may have a legal responsibility to keep your employer and/or regulating body in the loop about this matter.

Do keep us updated.

Though I do also think because it’s not in my name or date of birth, that could be why there’s nothing showing.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about my profession but since April 2019, I had held a higher level of security clearance and there was no mention of this. Even speeding tickets are pulled in this process.

I’m trying to ascertain if the person in question gave the correct details and there has been a clerical error in the court or if the details have been wrong from the start. In any such case the identity couldn’t have been confirmed because those details are incorrect, which is why I’m guessing I ended up with the resulting consequences as the closest possible match.

The 11 April 2019 Notice of Fine refers to a 'railway bye-law' offence. This indicates that you were convicted of an offence under Byelaw 18, as accurately paraphrased by the 2019 Notice. This takes you outside the large class of people recently discovered to have been prosecuted by means of an incorrect procedure, so you have no redress by that route.

The legislative provisions relevant to making a statutory declaration that you had no knowledge of criminal proceedings against you are Sections 14 and 16E Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and Part 44 Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. You can find these here and here.

Section 14 MCA 1980 applies if the case against you was commenced by summons, whilst section 16E applies if it was commenced by means of the single justice procedure. You should ask the court to clarify which of these procedures was used, so that you know which of these sections is applicable, although both sections contain substantially the same provisions about when a statutory declaration can be made and the consequences of delay in doing so.

If you had made such a statutory declaration within 21 days after you first became aware of your conviction then the magistrates were bound to re-set the case to its starting point. But a failure to make such a declaration within that 21 day period is not necessarily fatal. Both Sections 14 and 16E of the 1980 Act say that the court can accept a declaration made more than 21 days after the conviction came to the defendant's knowledge if “it appears to the court that it was not reasonable to expect the accused to serve that statutory declaration within that period” (Section 14 of the 1980 Act).

I know of nothing in the legislation that sets an end point after which the court must refuse to consider whether it should accept a declaration made after expiry of the 21 day period when the conviction came to the defendant's notice. That means that the communication from Vicki you have uploaded is incorrect in saying that the court is “unable to process” a statutory declaration in your case.

This means that you can still make such a declaration and submit it for the court's consideration in the way the legislation sets out – the details are set out in Paragraph 44.2 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. The court may still decide that it will refuse to extend the time for making the declaration, but it cannot disregard the declaration once it has been served in accordance with the Rules.

The court's decision on whether to accept a late declaration depends on the reasonableness of the reasons for the delay. You should not be penalised for failing to make a declaration after receiving the communication from Vicki, because this incorrectly encouraged a belief that the court would not 'process' such a declaration and that it would therefore be pointless for you to make one. That then leaves the question of what happened in the period before you received the message from Vicki, i.e. after you learned of your conviction and after you learned about the statutory declaration procedure for securing a re-hearing of your case. Was there a good reason for not serving such a declaration within the usual 21 day period? An explanation of why that was not done and why it would be unreasonable for you to have been expected to do so needs to be set out in any statutory declaration you now make and serve.

Belatedly making a statutory declaration of your ignorance of proceedings is a separate route towards re-opening your case from the application under Section 142(2) which I described in my previous post. The two routes are not mutually incompatible, so can be pursued simultaneously. The court can deal with both at the hearing it has now agreed to list. The tests applied are different: in the application under Section 142(2) you seek to persuade the court that the interests of justice require the case to be re-opened, whilst in the case of the statutory declaration you must try to convince the court that you could not reasonably be expected to have made the declaration within 21 days of discovering your conviction.

Making the requisite statutory declaration and serving it on the court now gives you the opportunity to marshal and submit a written record of the evidence supporting your request to have the case re-opened. It gives you the opportunity to put written evidence before the court of the misleading claim that it was 'unable to process' a statutory declaration, but you will also need to account for any delay in making such a declaration before you received that misleading communication.

Edited to add that a template for the appropriate form of statutory declaration is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statutory-declaration-of-ignorance-of-proceedings. It is a template you can adapt to suit the requirements of your case, and you can add extra pages to it setting out additional information as necessary. You can also attach to it copies of relevant documentation such as the ''unable to process" message to you. Such copies are technically referred to as 'exhibits' to the declaration.

I wasn’t aware I could make one, I was initially told to apply to reopen over the phone. After much back and forth over the phone I switched to email and again was told to make phone calls instead.

The entire thing has been handled so badly and I have been chasing, waiting for emails, calling, emailing thrice without response to get to this point. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on.

When I finally got a response RE the statutory declaration, they said it was too late. Not because I didn’t try, but because nobody processed it.

 

[John Palmer]

There's not much I can add to what I have said already, as I don't have full details of the relevant timeline of events and communications between you and 'officialdom'. The earliest pertinent communication you have uploaded bears an 11 March 2024 date, which implies that by then at least two months had already elapsed since you became aware of the conviction in 2023. You may well need to clarify at the court hearing what was happening in the period up to 11 March 2024 in order to demonstrate that there was good reason for not serving a statutory declaration before that 11 March communication.

I can't fault the advice from 'cb-enquiries' that you should make and serve a statutory declaration, and if the court's initial advice was instead to apply by phone for the case to be re-opened then that was poor advice and you should draw the court's attention to it in the statutory declaration I recommend you to make now.

I am making that recommendation on the basis that you should assume the worst case, namely that the court (and not just its collection department) regards you as a properly convicted defendant, so that you need to take appropriate steps to get that conviction set aside and the case re-heard. Making the statutory declaration has the additional merit that by doing so you are taking the initiative in seizing some control over the process being followed, rather than being passed back and forth between different elements of the court's bureaucracy.

I'll only add that the messages you have uploaded do suggest a confused and confusing state of affairs in the court's administrative arrangements. How on earth is an outsider supposed to understand what is meant by a reference to a case being placed in a 'holding court'?

 

[CWTW]

The first email I have to the court was January 2nd 2024. The first call June 9th 2023. I’d have to check my phone records and hope the courts keep a log so they can listen to the advice I was given but at least in several email chains I’ve repeatedly been told to call and wait until someone reaches out via email. I have only this week received an official document. Any information up until this point has been given in parts over the phone or via text.

Sorry if it’s obvious but how do I make a statutory declaration and to whom?

Also I wanted to add that I’m very grateful for everyone’s advice, it really is greatly appreciated.

 

[some bloke]

I suggest you email the court staff asking them to email you all the paperwork leading up to the conviction, including the Single Justice Procedure Notice or summons, and the witness statement, say by the end of Tuesday.

That would among other things show any differences in name, date of birth and/or address over time due to copying errors.

Perhaps the train company could also help at some stage as to whether the original notes of the encounter had any differences in name/date of birth/address. In what circumstances they may be willing to share information may not be clear initially, if there is doubt as to whether the information is about you.

 

[Haywain]

I'm with @Puffing Devil on this, it isn't wrongful conviction but wrongful identification for collection.

 

[some bloke]

It's possible that the train company and/or court had communications about the case from an actual defendant, which the paperwork could reveal.

How common your surname is could be one factor.

 

[WesternLancer]

Sorry if it’s obvious but how do I make a statutory declaration and to whom?

Also I wanted to add that I’m very grateful for everyone’s advice, it really is greatly appreciated.

You can read about doing a Statutory Declaration on gov uk website but it may help to get clarification on any queries you have here. It’s often recommended here that you do it via a solicitor for which a nominal charge is levied.

I assume it’s then submitted to the correct court.

 

[John Palmer]

This doesn't look like a faulty conviction, it looks like a faulty collection.

It's entirely possible that the problem stems from faulty collection rather than a faulty conviction, but what seems clear from the court service communications received is that the court is treating the OP as a properly convicted defendant, and the OP may discover that this is the only basis on which to resolve the matter. Better to do so sooner rather than later, in order to counter any suggestion that the OP has not acted as promptly as was possible. If the problem is one of faulty conviction then proceeding on the footing that a re-set of the case is required will resolve the matter one way or the other, whereas acting on the assumption that this is a faulty collection issue may not do so.

how do I make a statutory declaration and to whom?

Part 44 of the Criminal Procedure Rules (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/759/part/44) sets out details of what must be done to make an effective statutory declaration. The declaration doesn't have to take a particular prescribed form, but the template to which I supplied a link in post #15 makes a good starting point which can be extended as necessary to detail the relevant circumstances. With the declaration must be served the separate notice required by CPR Part 44.2(2)(b) – in your case it can be a notice that simply states an intention to plead not guilty to the charge and that such notice is given in accordance with CPR Part 44.2(2)(b); again there is no prescribed form for such a notice.

The declaration can either be made at the magistrates court or (probably more conveniently) to a local solicitor, who will make a fixed charge of £5 for administering the declaration, plus £2 for each document exhibited to the declaration (which is why it is a good idea to make multiple documents intended as exhibits into a single bundle that can be referred to as such and treated as a single exhibit).

The completed declaration plus the accompanying Part 44.2(2)(b) notice must be served on the court officer (CPR Part 44.2(2)(a)). Who is “the court officer”? CPR Part 2.2(1) contains the extraordinarily unhelpful definition that it means “the appropriate member of the staff of a court.” I would suggest that you send the declaration to “The Appropriate Court Officer, Luton and South Bedfordshire Magistrates' Court, Stuart Street, Luton LU1 5BL”, ideally by means of signed-for delivery so that you can prove service (I'm assuming I have identified correctly the magistrates' court dealing with the case).

 

[Puffing Devil]

Given that the matter has been relisted to be reopened and the OP is expected to attend, that has to be the next move.

This may be one instance where speaking to a local criminal defence solicitor and getting representation may be helpful. An initial telephone consultation should be free.

 

[LYradial]

Is it possible that the attachment of earnings order was a result of the train company or their agents applying to the county court judge to issue this, a very quick read suggests that such an order can only be made by a county court

 

[AlterEgo]

Is it possible that the attachment of earnings order was a result of the train company or their agents applying to the county court judge to issue this, a very quick read suggests that such an order can only be made by a county court

No. This is a criminal case which was heard in the magistrates’ court and is a criminal matter. This doesn’t need to go through the county court; deductions from wages are quite normal for unaddressed court fines.