Chris the Fish wrote:
No it's not mitigation, it is a Defence.
Not sure if anything's really a defence, Chris, rather than mitigation.
It's an absolute offence, like speeding, so you either did it or you didn't, and your intention and knowledge of what's going on doesn't matter. So even if your speedometer is reading incorrectly, you're still guilty of speeding, even though you thought you were doing nothing wrong.
Of course, you could say in
mitigation that your speedo indicated that you were within the speed limit, and that might help you keep your licence, say. But that's not a defence to the offence as such, it's merely mitigation as regards the punishment.
As regards the insurance offence, another angle is not to charge in the first place, or to drop the charges, which Sudbury's lawyers are obviously looking at.
As regards Sudbury's fit and proper status as a licence holder, clearly that's a bit different, because it's a quasi-judicial decision, and licensing committees obviously have considerable discretion in that regard, and to that extent it's not a 'strict liability' scenario like the criminal offence of no insurance.
So the fact that Sudbury did all he reasonably could as regards making sure he was insured will self-evidently work in his favour as regards his fit and proper status. Particularly as the reasonableness of his behaviour is in large part due to the fact that the council itself was duped by the insurance situation, and to an extent at least Sudbury relied on the council to vet the licence holder's insurance status.
So it's totes awkward for the council, and to that degee it would be a travesty if Sudbury received any more than a slapped wrist from the council's licensing committee.
But my only advice to Sudbury at this stage would be to not push the council too hard, in case it backfires. But they're obviously on the backfoot and not in a good position as regards their own processes, procedures and conduct.
If it was up to me Sudbury would never have been charged in the first place, but them's the rules, and I think he has plenty of arguments in his favour to mitigate the eventual outcomes in terms of his fit and proper status, if not the offence of no insurance per se.
I think