ROAD TRAFFIC.

Disqualification - speeding conviction - justices entitled to consider driving record and previous penalty points when deciding whether to impose discretionary disqualification.Jones v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary: DC (Buxton LJ and Penry-Davey J): 10 October 2000

The defendant motorist was convicted of speeding.

The justices, in view of his previous 11 penalty points for speeding, decided to impose a 'totting up' six-month driving disqualification under s.35 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, which was a longer disqualification period than they could have imposed under s.34 for the single offence committed.

The defendant appealed, contending that the correct procedure was to decide first whether to disqualify him under s.34 without reference to the penalty points on his licence.

Morris Cooper (instructed by Hatcher Rogerson, Shrewsbury) for the defendant.

Tracey Lloyd-Nesling (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service, West Mercia) for the prosecution.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that the various systems of disqualification ran parallel with each other and were not mutually exclusive; that a defendant who was disqualified on a totting up basis was neither subject to double jeopardy nor punished which did not fit his crime; that the defendant's offence was two fold: first his offence equated to a count of driving at 92 miles per hour, and second he repeated a category of behaviour committed over the previous two and half years; that the repetition was one aspect of the seriousness of the offence and the facts of the instant offence another aspect; that the proper approach to be taken by the justices was first to decide whether to impose a discretionary disqualification; that they exercised that discretion in light of the defendant's whole record and in the knowledge that, if they thought he should have a longer disqualification because of totting up, they could decide not to disqualify him under s.34(2) so that his points would be added to his licence and could lead to a totting up disqualification; and that, accordingly, the justices' decision to utilise the provisions of s.35 was correct.