Any advice gratefully received!

Convicted Driver Insurance

simon61

New Member
Hi
My son was breathalysed at the roadside and blew 70. After a delay 0f 2 hours due to police being busy and it being on the border of 2 police areas, taken to police station where he blew 0 5 times ( police got an engineer out to the machine who checked it and said it was fine) . A blood test was taken due to the anomalous results. Released without charge pending investigation/blood tests.This was 12 weeks ago and i was wondering if anyone had experienced such a delay. I asked in the solicitors section couple of weeks ago and his advice was "wait until contacted". I appreciate they are busy but this seems a long delay. If anyone has experience of this issue i would really welcome any advice.
 
A 12 week delay is not uncommon. The police have 6 months from the date of the offence to commence proceedings, but even then the paperwork does not have to be served within that time, so potentially he could have to sweat for 7 1/2 months before he can feel he is in the clear.
There is a glimmer of a defence here though, should they decide to prosecute your son. He blew 5 times into the machine, and recorded 0. The police required ablood sample, which they can do, but only if they suspect that the breat test machine is faulty.... yet you said that they had an engineer check the machine and he said that it was fine! Therefore no grounds to require a blood sample so that should be ruled inadmissible.
The reading of 70 at the roadside is of no consequence as it is an indication only, on a better operated machine, which is not evidence.
Should your son receive a summons then by all means come back for further advice and the defence can be explored in more detail.
 
The obvious question is how did your son know the machine was fine. We've all had engineers out who have said the machine is "fine" you just need to clean the filter or whatever. The best guess was that it wasn't entirely without fault if it didn't register a reading but you never know.

The solicitor advice is good, don't poke the hornets nest. Your son wouldn't be the first to fall down the back of a filing cabinet.
 
The question isn’t why your son thought that the machine was fine, the test is whether the officer reasonably believed that the machine had not produced a reliable result. That needs to happen for the police to have the power to then require a blood sample.
If the officer had just said: “I felt it was not working properly.” then it might be hard to shake what he says, but in this case, if the op is correct, the officer sought the opinion of an engineer (who should know a lot better than the officer about reliability) and the advice was that there was nothing wrong with the machine. That puts the defence on much stronger grounds to challenge the officer on “why did you think the machine was unreliable when a trained engineer advised you that it was fine?” If he did not have reasonable belief that it was faulty then the subsequent request for blood is inadmissible and the result of that cannot be used. Neither can the roadside “70”, leaving the evidence of 0 on the evidential machine.
 
Just out if interest, wouldn’t he have the test results receipt?
i only just found mine yesterday, but it shows a simulator before and after the specimen checks?
So, if it went ...
simulator 35
specimen1 0
specimen2 0
simulator 33
... instead of any values under specimen (like mine had) then they couldn’t claim it was broken? And they wouldn’t have went ahead with the specimen tests if the first simulator read 0 instead of 35 ?

Just curious. Id be looking for the receipt. It’s easy to forget what you were given at the time - I’ve got various docs that I must have been given as I have them ... but I don’t remember getting or reading.
 
Agreed that the print out would be a good thing to have, but as they decided that the machine was unreliable and they were moving on the blood then it would not normally be given to the suspect at the time.
Should a court case ensue, then the print out from the breath test machine could be demanded to be submitted to the defendant as evidence which would help the defence case.
The police officer would claim that he saw a reading of 0, but looking and smelling the defendant made him suspect that the device was unreliable and the court would then have to decide if this amounted to a “reasonable belief”. Note that the law says a reasonable belief, which needs more firm evidence than a reasonable suspicion.....
 
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Thank you so much for your replies. My son said the rational the officers gave was that there was such a discrepancy between the roadside result and the station result there was reasonable grounds for a blood test. He wasn't given a print out.
All things considered think we should wait( despite the fact it could be months!) and decide how to move forwards once we know if he will be charged.
 
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