Improbability Driving in Dundee
"What is improbable is extremely probable." Aristotle (probably)
The following saga relates my experience fighting an accusation of Dangerous Driving in a Scottish court. I post the story for a number of reasons:
*The 3 witnesses in the case conspired
to make false allegations against me: they lied in court and successfully
perverted the course of justice.
*I discovered that the Scottish Justice System makes no effort at all to stop
such malicious accusations getting to the prosecution stage.
*My trial was badly mishandled by my solicitor, who went on to make false
statements to the Law Society of Scotland when I complained about him.
Here is a summary:
A driver, angry at
being held up on his local road, which he liked to use as a racetrack, had a
temper tantrum and tailgated me; this didn't satisfy his fury so he got
together with an acquaintance and reported me to the police.
The acquaintance, a motorcyclist who claimed to be a witness, got his
girlfriend to say she was riding pillion and pretend to be a third witness.
The conspirators embellished their story with a number of improbable events. Like Heart of Gold, the
Douglas Adams space ship with its Improbability Drive, they twisted the laws of
space and time:
1 - the driver claimed his car was damaged but a scuff mark on a tyre was all the police could find;
2 - the driver 'remembered' 2 registration numbers, despite claiming to be shocked and confused;
3 - the motorcyclist, who claimed he always kept to the speed limit, managed to keep pace with, and even overtake, my (allegedly) speeding car;
4 - he said he identified me when "he looked over and we looked back", even though he'd just told the court I was ahead of him at the time;
5 - his pillion witness said she "got quite a fright" when observing the incident even though she would have been 20 miles away at the time;
6 - my magic Citroen twice overtook the witnesses even though they'd just told the court I was in front of them;
7 - and finally, the least improbable fact (which Douglas Adams fans will appreciate) is that the complaining driver lives near Liff.
Unfortunately, the Sheriff refused to believe that such improbable evidence, supposing he'd spotted
it, made the witnesses any less credible: he accepted their version of events
and convicted me.
After the trial, I unearthed definitive proof that a crucial part of the
prosecution's tale, relating to the time and location of the main incident, was
false.
The authorities were not interested.
Road Rage
Doing 50mph, I indicated and moved out to overtake a slow dropside Transit overloaded with domestic bric-a-brac. I could see a car in the outside lane, more than 100m back, a safe enough distance on a road with a 50mph limit.
Or so I thought.
Suddenly it was right behind me; the driver didn't like being held up and showed his displeasure by flashing his lights, hooting and tailgating so closely I couldn't see his number plate.
As soon as I passed the Transit, I moved back to the inside lane.
The car - an Astra - then cut sharply in front of me and slowed to about 30mph.
Fortunately, the driver did not indulge in any brake checking and I was able to keep a safe distance from him.
I refrained from doing anything, such as flashing or making rude gestures, that might only have exacerbated matters.
And that was the end of an unexceptional (and not uncommon) road rage incident.
But for a couple of things that happened later:
First, a motorcyclist on a Kawasaki appeared suddenly, overtook, then slowed down. When it was alongside the Astra, the rider twisted round in the saddle, looked back at me, and pointed at the Astra with a gloved forefinger.
Then, 5 weeks later, PC Mark Lambley and WPC Fisher called at my house.
Lambley said that "several motorists", including a motorcyclist, had reported me for erratic driving and overtaking on the inside.
He cautioned me and charged me with Dangerous Driving.
I said I remembered an incident when a car tailgated me egregiously.
They took this down in their notebooks but did not then ask for a formal statement.
Complaint
About 2 months later, I received a Citation, also known as a
Charge Sheet, Indictment or Copy Complaint, hand delivered by an official from
the Legal Documents Unit. He told me to send the form back with my Plea
forthwith or face going to Court to plead. He said I should enclose my driving
licence. As you only do this if you are pleading Guilty, this official clearly
assumed I was guilty. I was only given a couple of
days to respond so I sent my Not Guilty plea back in the reply-paid envelope
provided.
But the Procurator Fiscal's office claimed they never
received it and I had to resend it.
This is what the Citation said:
“on 15 June 2004 on a road or other public place, namely Kingsway West, Dundee, you [the Accused] did drive a mechanically propelled motor vehicle, namely motor car registered number SK52DJO dangerously in that, near to the junction with Liff Road you pulled out into the path of motorcycle registered number Y186VMW, forcing Russell Moir to brake to avoid a collision, and near to the junction with Myrekirk Road, you overtook motor car, registered number SA53HVZ, on its nearside, then swerved violently into its path, forcing Peter Carnegie to brake and swerve to av avoid a collision, causing his vehicle to collide with the central reservation, and, near to the junction with Strathmartine Road, you overtook motorcycle, registration mark Y186VMW, on its nearside; contrary to the Road Traffic Act 1988, Section 2 as amended "
The first charge was completely fictitious, the second an utter
perversion of what had actually happened, while the third was an clumsy
embellishment (it was later quietly dropped and never made it to court).
The entire trumped-up concoction told me the prosecutor was either a chancer -
an unscrupulous opportunist - or a credulous believer in tall tales.
Driving Test
Tom Cruickshank was the solicitor assigned to me. He was, I was
told, an expert in road traffic law. I went to see him in his oak-and-leather
office. He told me he was an expert driver, having been a racing driver and an
Advanced Driver.
He was also a walking lie detector, having the ability to tell whether a
witness is prevaricating just by looking at their knees: shaking knees, apparently,
are a sure sign of a liar.
Having heard my story, he told me that by my own admission, I was guilty of
Careless Driving. By this he meant that you are not allowed to move out and
impede following traffic, no matter what speed it is doing.
In support of this argument he hypothesised that the complaining driver might
have been an undercover police officer rushing to attend the scene of a crime:
it mattered not that SA53HVZ was an ordinary Astra with no blue lights.
Or he could have been speeding to take a sick baby to hospital: it mattered not
that the Astra wasn't carrying a baby.
It wasn't until I researched these points later that I realised my 'expert
in road traffic law' was talking bullshit. Unfortunately, as things were
to turn out, this 'expert' did a far better job than the prosecutor at
getting me convicted.
Before ending the audience, Cruickshank told me proudly that he'd once been a
Procurator Fiscal and knew lots of influential people: he fished with Lord
Marnoch of the Appeal Court, hobnobbed with Lord 'Tiger' Morrison of the Court
of Session and had a relative on the Privy Council.
This was a man so far up his own arsehole that the only glimmer of light came
from his highly polished ego.
We nicknamed him Crookswank after his extreme self-regard (he
would constantly and shamelessly rub his ego in front of us) and also, as it
later transpired, his mendacity.
Trial and Error
The courtroom was hot and stuffy. I went into the dock and took a
swig of water from my bottle, but was immediately reprimanded and told
(correctly) by Crookswank that refreshment is not allowed.
The bewigged Sheriff made his grand entrance and Crookswank performed some
abject grovelling to apologise for his late arrival - he was 90 minutes late.
The Procurator Fiscal Depute (she was never introduced to the court) launched
the case by calling her first witness.
I have left the details of the case against me to this point because I'd only
just heard them.
The previous day, Crookswank had received a short call from the Fiscal Depute
summarising the Crown's case.
(Years later, I discovered that during the call he'd disobeyed my instructions
by asking the Depute to consider reducing the charge from Dangerous Driving to
Careless Driving if I pleaded guilty - a plea bargain. But the cocky Depute had
declined the offer.)
The three witnesses - Peter Alexander Gordon Carnegie (aka the
Balgowan Bully), Russell William Moir (aka Miro, the Perjurer)
and Catherine Anne MacGregor (aka Rob Roy, the
Perjurer's Apprentice) - stood in the witness box and lied with varying degrees
of authority.
MacGregor was a tallish woman who claimed she'd been
riding pillion on Moir's motorbike.
I knew the bike could not possibly have had a pillion rider.
She was asked to identify me. Clearly nervous, she waved vaguely at me.
She had never seen me before, but when you're presented with a bloke in the
dock flanked by two policemen, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Yet telling lies in a court of law must be a daunting thing to do and MacGregor
was struggling to overcome her fear.
Again and again she was asked to be more precise by an increasingly irritated
Fiscal Depute and eventually her wavering finger pointed directly at me.
Both MacGregor and Moir testified that at the Swallow
Roundabout I'd swerved into their path to avoid a lorry, causing Moir to brake.
They said the road was busy, a plausible assertion given that it was the
evening rush hour.
It was a lie: I had been surprised to find the Kingsway quiet, with little
traffic and no queues.
Moir claimed there was a queue at the next, Myrekirk Road, roundabout, because
a broken-down van was blocking the inside lane further along the carriageway.
It was another lie: there was no queue and no broken-down van.
Improbably for a motorbike
rider, he said they'd joined the queue in the outside lane and watched me speed
up what he called the "slow" lane until I came to the
broken-down van whereupon, he claimed, I'd swerved into the path of Carnegie's
Astra, which braked and hit the central reservation.
MacGregor said: "There could have been a collision. I got quite a
fright", as though the 'incident' had happened right in front of her.
It was a lie, but Crookswank swallowed it. It never occurred to him that
according to the witnesses's own testimonies, the bike would have been a long
way back, behind multiple vehicles, in a queue of traffic.
MacGregor, sensing that the cross-examination wasn't too taxing,
relaxed and became more confident and composed as her stint in the witness box
went on.
With his next question, my solicitor sought corroboration of Moir's story about
the blockage in the inside lane. He asked her this, a seemingly odd question
for a non-driver:
“Why were you in the outside lane at Myrekirk Road?”
The smart answer would have been: 'I don't know, I wasn't driving'.
Instead, she retorted: “Why not?” as though trying to
imagine the scene as the driver.
She had no answer because she'd been elsewhere at the time.
But, thinking on her feet, MacGregor answered the question with one of
her own, a tactic liars often resort to.
Thwarted, Crookswank did not challenge the evasion and asked her nothing more about her recollection of the 'incident'.
Carnegie, the Astra driver, claimed that I'd swerved into his path and he
panicked that he was going to run into the gravel and hit the crash barrier.
It was a lie: there is no gravel on the central reservation: only a
low-profile, bevelled kerb, designed to allow wheels to ride over it
harmlessly.
In the event, he said, he merely touched the kerb and later found a mark on his
tyre, but "it was OK".
In his initial report to the police, though, he'd claimed his car was damaged
by the collision with the central reservation. But he never mentioned the
tyre: it was the investigating officer who'd "found a slight scuff mark"
on the tyre, not Carnegie.
As the cross-examination continued, he said I had overtaken him again.
While my solicitor studied his notes, looking for his next routine question,
Sheriff McCulloch spotted the obvious piece of Improbability Driving and interjected,
asking:
"How does it pass you again if it's already in front of you?"
Carnegie recovered himself, saying:
"To be honest I was a wee bit shocked"
and the error wasn't referred to again.
Carnegie was then asked how he'd noted both my registration number and the
motorbike's number.
Although his police statement said he'd noted my number "at the time"
(of the 'incident'), in court he said he'd written down both numbers much
later, near the Strathmartine Road roundabout.
He was not asked how he'd managed to do this just after an 'accident' that had
left him "shocked" and looking "shaken"
(according to Moir, a super-observant 'witness') while negotiating a roundabout
and giving a thumbs-up sign to two motorcyclists.
It was another improbable scenario that was entirely lost on the court.
Courting Disaster
My turn in the witness box came. Prompted by Crookswank, I gave my
account of events, pausing often to allow him, the Depute and the Sheriff to
take notes. I closely followed the written statement I had given him.
But then he asked me something that was not in the statement and which had
never been discussed.
How many hours had I been driving for, and had I taken a break?
Without realising that these were questions best left to the prosecution I
answered, innocently enough: almost 5 hours with no breaks.
This was the answer to the dilemma the Sheriff faced.
He had heard two conflicting stories which, as he put it, "might have
happened on different days".
How to decide between them?
Now he was handed a non-stop driver on a plate.
He remarked that it was a long way to drive without a stop and that I might
have been tired and so the obstructions on the road might not have registered.
He thought I might not have seen the motorbike.
On that point he was right: how do you see an invisible motorbike?
Answer: only if your vehicle comes with an Improbability
Drive.
Sheriff McCulloch then said he found all three 'witnesses'
reliable and credible.
He complained to the Fiscal Depute that the charge should not have been
Dangerous Driving, because Miro had not been obliged to brake. He asked her for
the definition.
Crookswank jumped up, produced a volume from his case, opened it at a
bookmarked page and showed her the definition.
The woman stuttered, apologised profusely and amended the charge to Careless
Driving.
After pronouncing a Guilty verdict, the Sheriff asked my circumstances.
Crookswank came over and expressed surprise when I told him I was receiving
benefits.
As he was walking away I grabbed his gown and told him, loudly, that he
was not to offer any plea in mitigation.
He shook me off and, moments later, I heard him tell the Sheriff that I needed
my car to visit an ageing relative.
His disobedience probably made no difference: I was fined £300 and awarded 7
points.
They took my licence and doctored it there and then.
Crookswank and I had a debriefing session in the little
cloakroom.
He was cock-a-hoop, saying he had expected a Dangerous Driving conviction and a
driving ban.
He admitted he had made a mistake by asking how long I'd driven, but claimed
the Sheriff had already picked that up.
He was, he said, an expert in Road Traffic Law, but even experts make mistakes
sometimes.
"Anyway," he declared, "I think you're
lying".
Aftermath (how the improbability math might have been
resolved) *
These violations of the Laws of Physics - repeatedly overtaking a
vehicle that's behind you, displacing events in space and time, and keeping
pace with a much faster vehicle - annoyed Physics a lot and led to a heated
exchange of views with some Prosecution Lawyers in the lounge of the New Club
in Edinburgh.
Over the course of a fine lunch, Physics offered to overlook the violations if
the Lawyers agreed to give a similar concession to all those newly qualified
photons who are often caught going at excessive speeds.
After all, declared Physics, flashing along at more than 186,282 miles a second
on the A90 can really only be called Dangerous Driving if other drivers can't
be bothered putting on a pair of fashionable sunglasses.
The Lawyers agreed and reduced the charge to Careless Driving, the sentence
suspended for 2 light years.
* with apologies to Douglas Adams
