facing 6mth ban. if convince the court?

[tony33]

My question is if i convince the court of hardship and do not receive ban do my points still remain on licence.
If thats is the case isn't it better to bite the bullet and take the six months but then have a clean licence with no points after ??????

[Ethel]

You are getting confused I think.

If you have a ban, the conviction will still show on your licence and you insurance will be hoiked.

But at least you have the opportunity to acquire 12 more points afterwards before being banned again.

The courts are not stupid and will have heard every hardship story going.

Have you got the hard evidence to back it up? Your points will remain on your licence to answer your question.
And the fine would be huge.

[rojash]

If it's a totting up ban, I don't think the courts have discretion any more, I believe it's mandatory.

In any case, as you say, if you get banned, the points cannot be used in another totting up, so you will be free to run up another 12 before getting banned again!

[JudgeJ]

Although the law provides for a mandatory disqualification (for a minimum of six months) for �totting�, the Court does have the discretion to hear a plea of exceptional hardship.

To be successful the defendant must prove to the court that a disqualification would cause exceptional hardship to him and /or others. There are no hard and fast rules. Each case is heard on its merits and the decision is entirely at the discretion of the magistrates. However, as a guideline, the usual �loss of job and income� does not normally succeed. In fact most Benches consider that somebody who is dependant upon driving to earn a living should be even more careful than somebody who does not.

If the plea is successful the 12 (or more) points remain on the licence and any further conviction which either add to the original total, or bring the driver back to twelve or more (if any of the originals have been removed) will result in another hearing for �totting�. The same exceptional hardship argument cannot be made during the active period of any of the penalty points which were present on the licence when the first plea was made.

If you are disqualified for totting your points total returns to zero. However, you do not have a �clean� licence. As Ethel says, the convictions still remain and must be declared to insurers for the period they enquire about (usually five years). Thus the only advantage to �swallowing� the ban is that you have twelve points to play with before being banned again.