Failed to provide specimen of urine

[hamil43]

I was involved in an incident with my car on a country road. No other vehicles or persons were hurt/damaged other than my own.

I was taken to hospital in a stretcher and given a CT scan, Xray and morphine in which the time had gone to about 8 hours. The police were with me the whole time.

They said I had an hour (around 7 hours after incident) to provide a sample of urine in which I agreed. I then fell asleep as I was extremely sedated from the morphine. They then came in and said to me I did not provide a specimen in time and they will “be in touch”

I never was charged immediately or received anything like a piece of paper stating a charge. I am wondering if being under hospital drugs and strapped to a bed (head brace) will help me if I do get charged, because I did not know what was going on at all.

How long may I need to wait until I get a charge/letter/visit to home?

 

[Martin Hammond]

Good afternoon,

These days the police are often making people wait for the full six months before they charge them, so be prepared for a potential wait.

As to the case it sounds very much like you have a defence. Firstly, it appears you lacked the mental capacity at the time to agree to provide a sample and it also appears you have a defence on the basis you were not fully given the opportunity to provide the sample. Be warned that running a drink driving trial can be expensive but it certainly sounds like you have a good defence.

Kind regards
Martin.

 

[hamil43]

Thank you for the response Martin. I do not plan on representing myself and want to ensure I have the best support available from a professional. I would very much like to know what my course of action would be for preparing and perhaps ensuring my mental capacity is shown to be very poor.

Perhaps a GP visit or similar? I have been prescribed codeine for the crash & have the hospital A&E logs showing morphine given. I also have a concussion. Could it be the case of contacting police and making them aware of my situation and perhaps they will decide it’s not worth charging or perhaps CPS would be able to know this and decide not to go ahead?

I was not charged and have confirmed this after speaking to the police today. Anything I would be possibly charged with seems to be failure to provide specimen.

 

[Martin Hammond]

A visit to your GP would certainly have the potential to assist but the way we do it is to get the records from the hospital and use these to hire an expert to show your mental capacity. Getting hospital records can take an age so you want to start that now. Your GP would not be able to attend Court so an expert would have to use the GP's findings in their assessment.

As to making contact, only when you are charged is it worth trying to dissuade them. The police will not be interested in your representations at this stage, if they have enough evidence they will charge, but the CPS have a mechanism for us to be able to get them to consider if a case is worth continuing.

Kind regards
Martin