CREDITORS ANGRY Green light for appeals
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AS FORWARDERFAILS
by Mike Jewell • Hundreds of drivers may have been wrongly convicted of jumping traffic lights based on photographs taken by automatic cameras.
A Crown Court judge has ruled that evidence produced by the cameras prior to the law being changed at the beginning of January is inadmissible.
Godalming, Surrey truck driver Malcolm Lloyd, employed by Mays Motors (Transport) of Elstead, near Godalming, had appealed against his conviction for driving through a red light on the Harwich Link Road, Bolton, in October 1992. lle had been convicted by the Bolton Magistrates in May, being given a conditional discharge with three penalty points endorsed on his licence.
Bolton Crown court heard that the traffic light camera was activated when the lights changed to red. The speed of the vehicle was calculated by measuring the time taken to travel between two pads on the road surface, and the registration number of the vehicle was shown on the photograph taken by the camera.
Arguing that the photograph was inad missible, John Bleasdale, for Lloyd, said that the 1991 Road Traffic Act. which came into force on 1 July last year, amended the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1980 to make provision for evidence from recording devices to be used.
However, such records were not admissible unless produced by a device prescribed by the Secretary of State—and traffic light cameras were not prescribed by him until the beginning of January this year.
Quashing Lloyd's conviction, Judge Roger Farley said that at the time of the alleged offence the records produced by the cameras weren't direct evidence and needed corroboration.
ii Drivers convicted of jumping a red light before the beginning of the year—or those who pleaded guilty after being told there was photographic evidence—should seek legal advice about making an appeal to the Crown Court.