Motoring offence? You can now enter a plea on-line

Drivers charged with a minor motoring offence in England and Wales will soon be able to make a plea on the web, through a desktop, tablet or smartphone, as an alternative of producing a postal plea or a court appearance.

The ‘Make a Plea’ service will be rolled out across from March following a profitable trial in Manchester.

Throughout the trial about 1,200 people – or a third of applicable defendants – used the website to enter a plea.

It’s all element of a government bid to modernise the legal method and save income. It will also lessen the workload of police and courts, allowing them to concentrate on more complicated cases.

Sitting on the offence

Minor motoring offences accounted for 500,000 court appearances last year. The higher volumes take up large amounts of court time and can clog up the system.

Typically the offender decides not to appear, picking rather to plead guilty by post or allow the case to be heard in their absence.

Shailesh Vara, courts minister, says: “Digital technologies offers us an chance to make the justice method simpler, clearer and quicker. Portion of this means lowering or removing the unnecessary movement of paper, and men and women, around the system.”

Study this: Motoring conviction codes

Pleas please me

So how does the Make a Plea Service perform?

If you are charged with a minor motoring offence, such as speeding or driving with out insurance coverage, you can now make a plea online.

In other words, you don’t have to bother with the paperwork of a postal plea, or seem in court.

The new digital technique permits defendants to make their plea from any device, 24-hours-a-day, by way of a safe website – and they nevertheless get maximum credit for early guilty pleas.

Defendants can also see their case specifics online and view the proof prior to indicating their plea of guilty or not guilty.

Guilt trips

The service has been developed with court users, and the Ministry of Justice claims that identifying and concluding guilty plea instances earlier will save time, perform and cash for taxpayers, motorists and court employees.

The Make a Plea service will initially apply only to motoring offences but it could ultimately be extended to other low-level offences as component of the government’s strategy to modernise the justice technique.

The coalition is investing £160 million in digital technology for courtrooms like video hyperlinks, wi-fi and improved IT systems to finish the system’s reliance on paper.

Motoring offence? You can now enter a plea on-line