The daughter of a pensioner with dementia who was fined for not having car insurance as she lay in a care home bed says the justice system added extra pain to the family’s last few months of “hell”.
The 78-year-old woman who has schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and dementia, was hospitalised with a broken ankle from a fall in March, and then moved into care.
The Evening Standard highlighted this week that, despite her deteriorating health, she was prosecuted by the DVLA for not paying for car insurance.
The pensioner was convicted under the single justice procedure, a system which enables magistrates to sentence defendants behind closed doors based on written evidence alone.
The woman’s daughter told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning she and her brother were pushed to “breaking point” as their mother’s health declined and they then faced the stress of dealing with a court letter.
“The last three months have been hell,” she said. “From moving from March being at home, to then breaking her ankle, to being in hospital and to then being in respite care, and her mental health deteriorating and deteriorating.”
Asked about her experience dealing with the single justice system, she said: “I thought it was lacking. It just added to what is just a very overwhelming situation in the first place.”
She said she and her brother found the court letter and she went online to enter a guilty plea and offer the mitigating circumstances. “I had to put in that she had these three massive diseases, mental illness, and there was so little room to write it in,” she said.
The pensioner was ultimately fined £40 for the offence, and also ordered to pay £100 in costs and a £16 victim surcharge. Her daughter added that her mother, if she had received the letter, may have understood its contents but “it wouldn’t have sunk in and she would have forgotten to do anything with it”.
“If we had not seen the letter, it would have been a heavier fine,” she said.
Research by the Standard has shown that more than 500 people over 70 were prosecuted by the DVLA in the last months through SJP. In more than half the cases, no plea was received, leaving magistrates to decide whether to convict and issue fines without knowing the personal circumstances.
Magistrates Association chief executive Tom Franklin praised the Standard’s coverage of SJP cases. He said that the association had “called for a review of the transparency of that procedure to make sure that it is as good as if cases are heard in open court, and we don’t think they are at the moment”.
