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Anything dated on day 12 or earlier is (as you say) much more difficult, unless weekends, Bank holidays, Postmarks or Post office strikes come to the rescue.
I fully agree with what you are saying. For the benefit of anyone who's never been in this situation I'll explain why I feel they play dirty.
One of mine was dated the 11th day after the offence and the other the 8th day. The one dated the 8th day got caught up in a postal strike and arrived 31 days after the offence so I challenged it. The reply was that it was sent in good time so they had every right to believe that it would arrive in time and that would be their reasoning in court, as they couldn't be expected to know that it would get hooked up in the postal strike. Note that I'd have had to go to court, it would not be rejected immediately as the date on the letter was within the time scale. They are still using this tactic now.
They must bank on people reacting like I did, and that's why I feel they play dirty, as I was on ten foot of concrete with that one but just didn't want to go to court.
They use that court challenge as a means of putting people off pursuing it.
Yet if you'd gone to court you would have won. That's what is so insidious about the whole NIP/CoFP process - they're coercing innocent people into pleading guilty because it's cheaper for them, and they can do more people with less resources. If everyone opted to ignore the CofP and go to court, the system would grind to a halt and the Govt would have to do something to relax the rules.
On another note, the other NIP had the wrong registration number on the NIP paperwork as well as being late, an E instead of an F. I decided to challenge that one but was warned, again by the police or civilian worker, that as the photo clearly showed me driving, it didn't matter if the registration number quoted was an E, an F or a P, Q or anything else, the court would still know that it was me driving. It would be put down as an Admin Slip.
Wrong again. The NIP is asking who was driving the car with that registration on that date at that place. Wait till day 25 of the NIP period, and then reply saying you have no idea who was driving since you have no connection with any car with that registration. Which is 100% true.
Someone will look at the reply and work out that the reg on the NIP was wrong. However, if they attempt to re-issue a NIP with the correct reg, it'll arrive well after the 28 day limit for postal NIPs, so you reply to the NIP saying who was driving (to avoid a S172 charge)- but critically they cannot do you for the speeding offence since the NIP is out of date.
Small errors in the spelling of your name, or the location are de-minimus - and will be overlooked by any court. Major errors, like the time, date, or reg number cannot be overlooked.
....that as the photo clearly showed me driving....
So the civilian administratior of scam connections knows what YOU look like, and can stand up in court and say that the person in the photo is definatley YZ250? Yeah, right.