- An 86-year-old pensioner with Parkinson’s disease was convicted at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court for an unpaid car tax bill of £3.34, despite having previously paid an £80 penalty he believed was related to the same issue.
- The octogenarian, whose 86-year-old wife suffers from Alzheimer’s, explained in his written mitigation that his daughter, who manages their finances, overlooked the £20 annual tax renewal due to moving house.
- The case was processed through the controversial Single Justice Procedure (SJP), a fast-track court system where magistrates deal with low-level criminal cases behind closed doors, often without prosecutors routinely seeing mitigation letters.
- The magistrate accepted the pensioner's guilty plea and, considering his health difficulties and circumstances, issued an absolute discharge alongside the £3.34 compensation order to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), sparing him a further fine.
- The incident highlights ongoing concerns about the SJP system, which the government has been reviewing for 17 months following reports of vulnerable individuals being harshly convicted over minor unpaid bills, with no reforms yet announced despite a consultation.
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