Prosecutors have successfully appealed a decision by a Dundee Justice of the Peace which could theoretically have led to thousands of speeders having their convictions quashed.
At the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, Lord Eassie overturned the JP’s decision that convictions for speeding on Kingsway West were invalid due to the road order being out of date.
The appeal, by the Procurator Fiscal’s office in Dundee against local driver Ronald Martin, was upheld on the grounds that the JP had not shown proper reasons for dismissing the original speeding charge.
Mr Martin was originally charged with driving at 75 miles per hour in a 50mph stretch of the Kingsway.
Solicitors for Mr Martin had successfully challenged the relevancy of the complaint, stating that the Perth-Dundee Trunk Road (A972) (Kingsway, Dundee) (50mph Speed Limit) Order 1989 “the 1989 Order” was invalid since the A972 had been replaced by the A90; and that there was a lack of specification in the locus specified in the complaint and (b) what specification did exist in the complaint was erroneous.”
Lord Eassie said that, “With some hesitation, we have come to the conclusion that the charge is not irrelevant on that account.
“The road is clearly specified as being the Kingsway West and, while the section specified in the 1989 Order extends to 6.3 kilometres, that distance might not be thought to be an extravagantly libelled length of road.”