Driving under the influence

Our specialist drink driving solicitors have a 87% success rate in defending our clients against charges of drink driving and avoiding a drink driving ban. With years of experience within the field, we provide clients with vital assistance to ensure that they get the right verdict.

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Drink driving sentencing is dependent on sentencing guidelines, which take into account the readings of alcohol and any aggravating or mitigating factors. In general, a custodial sentence will be considered for alcohol readings of 120 micrograms in 100 millilitres of breath. With the intervention of our drink driving solicitors, you will receive indispensable legal advice to protect you from the potentially life-changing effects of a drink driving conviction or drink driving ban.

Over a number of years with the help of leading experts, we have developed a number of technical defences, which we have successfully used to ensure that our clients keep their driving licences. The unfortunate position is that majority of people stopped for drink driving automatically assume that they must plead guilty, but that is far from the case. The burden of proof is upon the Prosecution to prove every element of the offence against you, and due to years of underfunding, and lack of experience, the Prosecution often simply struggle to allay this burden. Listed below are some of the ways in which we help you keep your driving licence.

Breath Test Cases

The only piece of evidence against you usually, with regards to breath test cases, is the ECB machine results which will indicate that one is over the prescribed alcohol limit. In most cases people wrongly assume that the machine is infallible. However, with our expertise and use of leading experts in this field, we have, on many occasions successfully established that things do go wrong with these machines.

• We will test all components of the prosecution’s case against you.
• We will ascertain whether the machine has been calibrated effectively.
• We will ask the prosecution to provide calibration documents going back over a period of 6 months. These will include service manuals, user manuals and service logs. The prosecution will often fail in their duty to provide these documents. From a tactical point of view, failure to provide these documents can result in an application being made for an abuse of process, which, in essence, can be used to win a drink driving case.
• We will also look into great detail with regards to the procedure which the police must follow when conducting the breath test. At the police station the police have to complete a document, namely MGDDA which consists of approximately 30 questions. The form must be completed in a very strict manner and failure of the police to complete the form in the prescribed manner will result in any breath test reading being rendered inadmissible. The police are often not fully trained with regards to the breath test procedure, they often deal with multiple defendants and in our experience they often cut corners. We have successfully won cases, where it has transpired that the officers have not followed the correct procedure.
• We have successfully won numerous cases based upon identification. The identification issues usually involve situations where the police fail to fulfil their obligations under Code D of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. They often fail to hold correct identification parades in drink driving cases as they assume most people will be pleading guilty. We have successfully made applications to the court where this evidence has been rendered inadmissible. In the absence of this evidence it is very difficult for the prosecution to prove their case against you.

Please contact our solicitors as this may be something we can look into further for you.

Blood Cases

The police, in certain circumstances, will take blood instead of carrying out the breath test procedure. There are five grounds, which must be strictly adhered to, under which blood can be requested.

• We often find that the police don’t understand this particular procedure and their obligations therein. They often make huge mistakes and as a result the request for the sample of blood is rendered unlawful.
• The police often find it difficult to establish continuity of blood samples taken, blood samples which have been taken must be done with express consent and the blood samples must then be labelled and transported in the correct manner. We often find that there are huge issues with regards to cross contamination of samples taken. The police can find it difficult to prove that the blood taken is your sample and we often win cases based on this error.
• The police also need to prove that the forensic laboratory used to carry out the testing did so in the correct manner. The recent Randox scandal showed the problems the prosecution are facing. The laboratory weren't using the correct chemicals to test the blood results. Results were being over-inflated and as such the potential of the blood results being accurate became problematic for the prosecution.
• A sample must be provided to you, there must be enough blood obtained for an accurate sample to be tested.
• We have a number of leading experts that we use who help establish that the correct procedure has not been followed.

Please contact our solicitors as this may be something we can look into further for you.

Blood at the Hospital

Bloods being taken at the hospital massively increase your chances of success.

• In these cases it’s very difficult for the police to establish that the correct procedure has been followed. There has to be a lawful reason initially for the police officers to take blood.
• Police officers must establish consent from a doctor. Not just any doctor, but the doctor supervising the patient. The consent must be expressed and it must be clearly explained to the doctor what the effects of consent are.
• The blood sample must be taken by a qualified medical practitioner, not necessarily the doctor.
• The officer would have had to complete two different forms: MGDDA depending on if the breath test procedure was started; or MGDDB and MGDDC which details hospital procedure and is very different. Because it is very different the police haven’t had the training required and they invariably make mistakes.

Please contact our solicitors as this may be something we can look into further for you.

Urine

Just like blood and hospital cases, urine cases are very rare. Again, your chances of success are very high.

• Specific procedure dictates how urine must be obtained. There will be questions regarding lawful consent, at what point the urine was taken, whether your bladder had been completely emptied, questions over whether there was an intervening time period between giving the two samples. There may be issues over not being able to provide. There are a host of different issues with regards to urine cases and the procedural requirements, which the Police simply do not understand.
• The tested methodology would also come into question. The testing of urine is an area which is not that prevalent and as such laboratories testing the urine, often make simple mistakes rendering any evidence which they have obtained to become inadmissible.

Please contact our solicitors as this may be something we can look into further for you.

Special Reasons

In certain circumstances we can argue special reasons. Some examples include:

 

• Established emergency;
• Distance traveled

We have used these techniques to win our cases and make sure our clients keep their driving licence.

We are the leading drink driving experts. Please contact our solicitors to see if you have a defence.

For your free consultation with one of our drink driving solicitors
call 0161 850 2347