Driving offence- Fined by court - Effect on Naturalisation

[mrlookforward]

@indian_in_uk ...and anyone else with similar case who recently applied for Naturalisation, please share your experience.

I had a similar experience (but no letter from court..., the policeman just said I should take my documents to the police station, they took the licence and post it back to me!!)

I e-mailed the HO about it...and they replied as follows;

If you have a fixed penalty against your driving licence this should not effect your application. It is only court given fines that require you to wait a minimum of five years before applying.

If you were not required to go to court then you may be able to apply so long as you meet the other requirements stated in the guide AN.

You do not have to mention the Fixed Penalty on your AN form.

What I am not sure about is that ...You need a court to seat and a judge to convict before you can be convicted.... and can a court convict witout any communication whatsoever with the accused.

I need as many opinions on this as possible.

HI ERE,
I will try to make the position clear to you about this matter. The best way would be to give you examples. You are stopped by police and the policeman found that you were committing a certain offence, for example bald tyres or any other traffice offence. He says to you that he is issuing you with fixed penalty of 100 pounds and 6 points on your license. He gives you a "Fixed Penalty Notice". You pay the fixed penalty notice in the required time, and if there was a requirement to show any documents with the notice, then you show them too at the police station. Thats it. You are done and dusted. You have not been convicted, and you dont need to declare anything.

Second Scenario
A.
You never paid the fixed penalty fine and/or did not show the documents at the police station if you were required to do so as per the details mentioned in the fixed penalty notice.

B.
You did intend to pay the fixed penalty, but you couldnt take the points on the license because you held a foreign license.

C.
The policeman for any reason, including the B above did not issue a fixed penalty notice, but gathered the evidence and then later charge you with the offence.

Now if either A,B or C was the case, you will get summons from the court, which will say that you have been charged with so and so offence. You now have the option of pleading guilty and not guilty. You can do either by post or in person, its your choice. If you plead guilty, the court will find you guilty and give you the sentence, which could be x number of points and x amount of fine. It doesnt matter if you physically went to court, or you just pleaded by post, or even if you ignored the summons and took no action on them. You will now be regarded as "convicted". And the conviction will now need a rehabilitation period. In most traffic cases its 5 years. You will need to declare it to UKBA on the application form/s

If you plead "not guilty" by post or in person, but the judge decides against you and finds you guilty, then its same. You will now be regarded as "convicted" and the rest same as above.

If you plead "not guilty" either by post or in person, and the judge decides in your favour, then you are not convicted of anything and basically you can just forget about what happend and move on. Just treat it as if all this never happened. Something that has never happened doesnt need to be declared.

I just tried to explain without using the legal technical jargon.
Hope it helps

[superye]

Hi Mate,

I have same traffic offence - LC20. Can you please let me know if your naturalisation application has been successfully?

Thanks

Su

Hi All,

I have been living in the UK for nearly six years and have ILR (that was granted last year). I will be applying for Naturalisation soon,

I want to ask you guys about one incident that happened two years ago, I was driving on my Indian license but also had my provisional UK driving license with me. A police officer stopped me and asked me to produce all documents in police station, I produced everything(everything was fine, MOT, Insurance (on International License) and road tax etc.). Later I got a letter from court about the same thing. I went there and they fined me for the same offence and added three points on my provisional license. Aftr that I did not hear anything from them. The offence code was LC20 (not driving according to license)

I applied for my ILR last year and did declare this offence in the form but was not asked anything and granted ILR.

I am about to file my Naturalisation application soon, I was wondering can this effect my Naturalisation application by any chance?

Can you guys please help me here?

Thanks..

[indian_in_uk]

Hi,

I never applied for naturalisation. I was not sure whether I should apply for it because of the offence. I thought about waiting for 5 years.

Now, most probabaly I will never apply for naturalisation.

Just out of curiosity, any sucess for people who applied with LC20?

Cheers!