Driving Without Insurance: An Interesting Case Study

The law requires that any person using a motor vehicle on a road or other public place is suitably insured to do so.

We have previously discussed driving without insurance in an earlier article.

Under section 143(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a person commits and offence if:

• they use a motor vehicle on a road or other public place unless there is in force in relation to the use of the vehicle by that person such a policy of insurance that complies with the requirements of Part VI of the Act; or
• they cause or permit some other person to use a motor vehicle on a road or other public place unless there is in force in relation to the use of the vehicle by that other person such a policy of insurance.

The maximum penalty on summary conviction is a fine at level 5 (unlimited). The driver's licence would normally be endorsed with a minimum of 6 penalty points or a period of disqualification imposed.

The commission of most offences requires both a criminal act (known as the actus reus) and intent (known as the mens rea) on the part of the offender. Driving without insurance is an absolute (or strict liability) offence, which means that it is committed by the act of uninsured vehicle use alone.

A very interesting case appeared before the court a while ago. In order to protect the identity of the parties concerned I have tweaked the circumstances, but the essence is maintained.

A man appeared before the court accused of driving without insurance. He was a foreign national and struggled a bit with his English. He denied the offence, which was seemingly committed in the most bizarre of circumstances. For all he denied the offence, the basis of his denial was flawed and there was no way any of us - the bench, prosecutor or defence advocate - could ever see it getting as far as a trial.

The defendant had been given the use of a courtesy car when his usual vehicle was in the garage undergoing repairs.

He had been driving along a residential street when a football flew out over the road closely followed by children running in chase. The proximity of the children caused the defendant to brake sharply and swerve, which caused his vehicle to clip the wing of a second car parked at the roadside.

Thousands of similar collisions occur every single day and the overwhelming majority are resolved by the parties swapping details and coming to some sort of arrangement, whether or not that involves an insurance claim.

The defendant spoke to the owner of the damaged vehicle, who coincidentally was the parent of the children who had ran out into the road. He went into the glove box of the courtesy car in search of the documents pertaining to the vehicle. At that point it became apparent that his use of the courtesy car was not covered by a valid insurance policy. The owner of the damaged vehicle, who was clearly aggrieved at events, decided to report the matter to the police.

As mentioned earlier, the defendant was a non-native speaker of English. As far as he was concerned the collision had been a genuine accident, through no fault of his own. He was also of the opinion, not unreasonably, that it was not his fault the courtesy car was uninsured, so he was denying the offence on that basis.

Unfortunately, for the reasons discussed earlier, the account given by the driver was no defence in law - he drove a vehicle without insurance, albeit unwittingly and without criminal intent, so the offence had been committed. It was his responsibility to check that the courtesy car was insured, but it is hardly surprising that he took it on trust that it would be.

It's at this point that we retired to allow the defendant some further time with his solicitor to explain the strict liability rule and hopefully persuade him that denying the offence was futile. It would appear that for reasons of either personal pride or culture the defendant had great difficulty admitting to an offence he didn't accept the blame for.

It has to be said that we had a lot of sympathy for the defendant's plight - particularly as we learnt that the owner of the garage had already been convicted of allowing him to use the uninsured courtesy car and made good the damage to the other vehicle. We are also slightly perturbed that the Crown had seen any public interest in pursuing the prosecution.

After quarter of an hour we returned to the courtroom and asked the prosecutor, who was an agent acting for the CPS, if he wanted to "take a view" in continuing with the charge. He replied that he had his instructions and was not at liberty to deviate from them.

A short while later the defendant returned and was now prepared to admit the offence, albeit begrudgingly.

We retired again and returned a few minutes later to tell the defendant that we would be giving him an absolute discharge. Furthermore, we would not be endorsing his licence or making him pay anything towards costs.

That is an exceptionally unusual case and I think we got to the most just outcome in the end. I remain disappointed that the CPS didn't take a more pragmatic approach.