Notice of Intending Prosecutions

Request

1. When posting Notice of Intending Prosecutions what postal service is used.

First class post.

Section 1 Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 ['RTOA 1988'] provides that a defendant cannot be convicted of certain road traffic offences set out in schedule 1 RTOA 1988 unless they have been warned that the question of prosecution would be considered. Such a warning is normally known as a "notice of intended prosecution", or NIP.

A notice of intended prosecution can be given by sending within 14 days of the alleged offence, a notice indicating the possibility of prosecution to the registered keeper of the vehicle.

2. What is your method of recording / tracking process for ensuring mail is sent from your department.

When a NIP is printed and subsequently posted, a manifest of posting is produced and Royal Mail sign to show that they have received these items.

3. Can these records been provided for specific dates. 

Manifests of posting are linked to offences within our processing software. If a matter was to progress to court then a copy of the manifest would be included within the evidence pack provided by CPS.

4. How do you ensure mail is delivered and what is your recording / tracking method/s.

There is no requirement for us to record or track mail having been delivered. It is presumed that a correctly addressed envelope, sent by Royal Mail, is deemed to have been delivered in the “ordinary course of post” (Section 7 Interpretation Act 1978). This is defined as 2 business days after posting if sent by normal first-class post (Rule 4.11 Criminal Procedure Rules 2015). Business days do not include Saturdays, Sundays or bank holidays. (Benjamin Joseph Hall v CPS refers)

5. Did you have a method of recording returned mail?

An item of returned mail is recorded against the specific offence record that it relates to.

6. Do you have a record of any records of missing / returned mail between the following specific dates. 

For offences that took place between those years, 252 items of mail have been returned to us by Royal Mail.

Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording systems and information assets.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data are used

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.