Our Fees for Road Traffic Offences

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Our Fees for Road Traffic Offences

Our fees for road traffic offences

We are setting out our fee structure for Guilty pleas only. What we normally do is have an initial consultation with you about your case to assess what your plea should be, this can be in person, on the telephone or via video call. This costs between £150 to £300 plus vat depending who sees you and how long it takes. Sometimes we will roll this charge up into the fixed fees we charge for your hearing.

Our fees for a guilty plea for offences like Drink Driving and speeding offences are £800 plus VAT if you are pleading not guilty then different fees apply.

Not Guilty cases can cost from £1,000 to £15,000 plus vat depending on the length and complexity of the case.

This fee would normally include about 2 hours attendance and preparation, considering evidence, taking your instructions and advising you on procedure and the likely sentence.  We would also attend and represent you at a single hearing at the Magistrates court.  This is an average cost but if we had to travel further and for instance stay overnight you would be responsible for these expenses.  We would of course inform you before any such charges were made.

This fee is applicable to straightforward guilty pleas for speeding and excess alcohol matters. It does not cover representation for exceptional hardship arguments if you are facing disqualification from driving. We would normally charge £600 to £800 plus vat for these offences.

We have in house experts that deal with driving offences and have done so for many years.  Sometimes you may want someone more experienced or more senior to deal with your case for instance, if you are facing a term of imprisonment.  You may face a term of imprisonment where there are high readings or accidents having occurred.  In these circumstances we would most likely charge hourly rates which are in the region of £250 to £300 per hour plus VAT.  A guilty plea of this nature might conclude within about 6 to 10 hours.  It is always very difficult to say exactly how long the work will take as we are dependent on third parties.

The court system is not as quick or as efficient as it used to be and that sometimes causes delays.  The Crown Prosecution Service who will prosecute the case against you are also suffering from a lack of resources and cut backs.  This often results in costs increasing through no fault of yours or ours but simply the circumstances we face.  There is generally no compensation to you for delays which occur of this nature.  It may be of course that the court list your case with too many other cases and cannot deal with you on the day.  If your case is seen as more minor than other cases your case would be put off to another day.

This is in relation to straightforward guilty pleas but there are of course other circumstances such as those we call “Newton Hearings”.  This where the court cannot decide how to sentence you until it hears evidence.  There will then be a sort of mini trial where the court will assess the evidence and decide how to sentence you.  This would of course mean that we would have to charge more and we will of course set out those costs to you before you decide to engage us to do this.  We may not have much notice to do this as we may not know until the day you appear in court that this happens.  This is a decision the court makes after you enter your guilty plea.

The fixed estimate fee for a guilty plea of this type does not include:-

  1. Instruction of any expert witnesses.
  2. Taking statements from any witnesses.
  3. Advice and assistance in relation to any special reasons or Newton Hearing.
  4. Advice or assistance in relation to any Appeal.
  5. The obtaining of any medical evidence on your behalf (this includes doctor’s reports or psychologist in relation to any issues that you may have).

 

The key stages of your matter are based on the presumption that you intend or have entered a guilty plea and have a date for your hearing:-

 

  1. Meet with your Solicitor or Legal Advisor either face to face, over the phone or via video conference to provide instructions on what happened.
  2. We will consider initial disclosure if it is provided to us before the hearing and any other evidence and provide advice.
  3. Arranging to take any witness statements if necessary (this will have an additional cost of approximately £100 to £500 plus VAT) and in addition obtaining of any medical evidence.
  4. We will explain to the court the procedure to you so you know what to expect on the day of your hearing and the sentencing options available to the court.
  5. We will conduct any further preparatory work, obtain further instructions from you if necessary and answer any follow up queries you have, proving these are subject to reasonable attendances. We would not for instance be available to speak to every day for a number of hours about the same matters.
  6. We cannot provide a time scale of when your hearing will take place as this depends on the court listing for that day.
  7. We will attend court on the day and meet with you before going to the court. We would anticipate you being at court for no more than half a day although the case as we explained earlier can be listed later in the day if there is a heavy list, or you may be asked to come back.  We may instruct a Barrister to represent you if we deem that more suitable.
  8. We will discuss the outcome with you. If advice on appeal is required, as long as it is able to be done on the day we will include this in the fees we charge for our attendance but if further investigation and analysis is required there would be an additional cost.

 

If your case did have to go to appeal either to the Crown Court or the High Court we will discuss those costs with you.

Tim Gir

tim@sanderswitherspoon.co.uk

01277 889251

01277 219125

Billericay, United Kingdom

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