A City worker has been fined nearly £40,000 for forgetting to pay the tax on his car for just over a month.
Sam Fisher, 30, faced prosecution by the DVLA this month over £50 of tax which had gone unpaid on his Range Rover.
A magistrate sat in private to decide on the case, in the Single Justice Procedure, and concluded Mr Fisher must pay an eye-watering £39,769 fine for the slip-up.
Court papers reveal Mr Fisher’s car had been spotted parked on the road near to his home in Barnes, south-west London, in August when the annual tax bill had not been paid.
Mr Fisher wrote in to explain his mistake, while pleading guilty to a charge of keeping a vehicle without a valid vehicle licence.
He said the tax was included on a past vehicle that he leased, and he had failed to realise that the tax on his new car only lasted for the first year, expiring at the end of June last year.
“I appreciate I probably should have been more involved in educating myself,” he told the court. “I have learnt that these things need to be properly checked and not just assumed.”
Mr Fisher said he received a notice about the unpaid tax on the evening of August 21 and paid the bill at the Post Office the following morning. The vehicle was then registered as being properly taxed from August 1.
“Apologies for causing some trouble for you, but it was a genuine mistake and I didn’t receive any communications before this point,” he added.
“As I work in the financial markets, any CCJ (County Court Judgment) or conviction for non-payments of fine would most likely cause large effects on my career.
“Ironically, I also have aspirations to join the police and/or the magistrate service when I retire, and I am unsure of the ramifications that a permanent conviction would have on those aspirations.
“Forgive my ignorance if that is an irrelevant thing to say, but consulting legal advice would likely cost more than the fine I would receive.”
A magistrate sitting in Crewe in Cheshire accepted Mr Fisher’s guilty plea, and upon conviction he was ordered to pay the five-figure fine, £85 in costs, and the £50 unpaid tax bill.
Court papers show the DVLA did not put forward any evidence to show the vehicle had been driven while untaxed, and the agency did not push for a particular level of fine. His vehicle attracts an annual car tax of £600.
Mr Fisher was among 2,948 defendants who were prosecuted last week for the offence of keeping a vehicle without a valid vehicle licence. His punishment was the most severe by a clear distance, with the second highest fine set at £1,675. Ninety-one per cent of defendants received a penalty of £660 or less.
Guidelines for sentencing suggest that the penalty on conviction should start at a £1,000 fine or five times the owed money, whichever if bigger. A defendant is also usually given “credit” in the form of a reduced fine for his guilty plea and mitigation.
Defendants can submit a statement of their earnings to the court, which are not usually made public.
The DVLA said on Wednesday that its officials had spotted the unusually high fine and flagged it as being outside the maximum allowable penalty.
The agency has made an application to the court for the case to be re-opened, so that the sentence can be considered afresh.
The government has promised a review of the Single Justice Procedure this year, after a litany of scandals about the way the system is operating.
One reform suggested by magistrates themselves is for written explanations to be published when a sentencing decision is considered out of the ordinary.
