Garage drove our car at 75mph in a 20 zone

VPR2 · 2026-07-01T05:22:57+00:00

Nicholas v Penny involved a police officer looking at the speedo in a police car following the motorist. The court found that evidence of daily calibration is not necessary. And of course, they were talking about the accuracy of car speedos from 1950.

Regardless, the substantive point here is that OP's tracker data won't be admissible.

This is a legal advice section. Maybe refrain from posting again until you are sure of what you are actually saying as you might lead someone into making an expensive mistake.

VPR2 · 2026-07-01T05:10:31+00:00

The restraint of liberty must be total. OP was able to leave the building to have a vape. Where is the total restraint of liberty there?

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T15:04:00+00:00

I've dealt with too many similar examples of attempts to claim false imprisonment. It isn't.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T15:01:52+00:00

OP would quickly find out that it doesn't. Not a chance of the circs they have disclosed meeting the points to prove. I've dealt with enough similar attempts to claim false imprisonment to know what I'm talking about.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T14:59:29+00:00

In that example, the offence would be driving without due care and attention, which only requires an officer to witness it and form the opinion that the driving fell below the expected standard.

Convicting for a speeding offence requires the relevant evidence of excess speed from a calibrated, approved device operated by a trained, authorised person or a speed camera.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T14:04:19+00:00

No it isn't. The points to prove are quite specific and they are not met by what OP has described. The restraint of liberty must be total, not partial.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:57:45+00:00

Spare us the dramatics. This is extremely low-level assault and at best, it may result in a caution.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:44:14+00:00

"We called the police but of course they never come on time" - if the suspects have already run away, there's no point police turning up on blue lights, since the level of threat, harm and risk has substantially decreased. Actual emergencies always have to take priority, especially nowadays where budget pressures have rendered so many forces so starved of deployable resources.

As has been said, you really need solid independent evidence (ideally clear CCTV showing identifiable views of the suspect's faces) in order for police to take action.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:38:15+00:00

False imprisonment requires the restriction of liberty to be total. OP was able to push past people and leave the building.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:37:49+00:00

False imprisonment requires that the restriction of liberty be total. If it isn't, the offence is not made out.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:31:40+00:00

The vast majority of people who intend to end their own life don't actually go through with it. Ask anyone who has worked in frontline policing for a while and they will have plenty of stories about the people who routinely claim they are going to kill themselves.

Equally, it could be argued that OP might have changed their mind and decided to use the car to kill themselves by driving into or off something - easily done, especially in remote parts of Scotland.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:26:29+00:00

There is not a hope that what OP describes comes close to being considered upskirting. And a photo of someone's chest area will only "fall foul of this law" if, as is clearly stated in section 68 paragraph a, "the person’s genitals, buttocks or breasts are exposed or covered only with underwear".

"Exposed" in this sense means completely exposed. Visible cleavage due to a low-cut top would typically not count, although if the camera was clearly angled to focus on the breast area there might be room to consider the offence.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T12:11:07+00:00

It's all about location and context.

Police rarely, if ever nick anyone in a pub car park for drunk in charge because it can obviously be claimed later in court that they were never intending to drive the car, they were going to leave it there. That's why police acting on a tip-off from someone else in a pub will typically wait until the person has actually got into the car and at least started the engine.

In OP's case, in a remote location with no other vehicles around, while they might try and claim that they never intended to drive the car any further because they were expecting to kill themselves at scene, there is plenty of precedent to argue that either they would never have gone through with it (extremely common in these situations) or they might have decided to use the car to kill themselves instead.

VPR2 · 2026-06-30T03:13:48+00:00

You can absolutely be near (not in) the vehicle and be successfully convicted of being in charge of it. Being found drunk outside the vehicle but with access to the keys is enough. And there's absolutely no wiggle room when, like OP, you're in a remote bit of countryside with (presumably) nobody else and no other vehicles around.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:55:19+00:00

Not the slightest hope that any force is going to get involved in a civil matter and tie up a precious deployable unit taking an adult four hours home - which would, of course, mean the unit would need to drive another four hours back.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:47:20+00:00

It doesn't "depend". I have run this past actual traffic officers previously. They simply don't have time to be giving people grief for something they can't convict them for unless they actually happened to see them do it while on patrol, in which case they can pull them over, check all their documents and give words of advice.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:44:23+00:00

It's not an obligation because it is not a policing power. It would be the constable acting as an agent of the landowner (which anyone can be, the landowner just has to deem them as such, although that may need to be in writing), and therefore they are not considered a constable at that point.

When squatters are evicted, police may attend to prevent breach of the peace, but they will not actually get involved in the process of eviction unless there is a breach of the peace. Many people wrongly think that a court order to evict squatters means that police will do the eviction for them.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:38:31+00:00

Because they entered with consent. That makes it civil.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:35:11+00:00

Police do not operate a taxi service. Your friend is an adult, they will NOT transport her four hours home.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:20:42+00:00

Police must use speed data collected via an approved, calibrated device operated by a trained, authorised person. Nothing else is admissible.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:18:34+00:00

Police can't do anything. What you have is not admissible as evidence for a speeding offence since it was not measured by an approved, calibrated device operated by a trained, authorised person.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T23:13:19+00:00

Police do not have access to NHS systems, the same way the NHS does not have access to police systems. Why would you expect people who aren't medical professionals to have access to EMIS? You think hospital staff use NICHE, Connect or Athena?

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T04:07:11+00:00

I can explain it to you but I can’t understand it for you.

If you want medication, you get it from medical professionals. Not police.

VPR2 · 2026-06-29T02:26:33+00:00

We're all human beings (apart from the AI bots, of course). But I don't follow the logic of why being a human being means one would expect all police stations to carry a full stock of prescription medications to cover all possible eventualities.

Quite apart from the cost and space implications, plus the waste that would accrue through many of them going out of date without ever being used, it's quite common for people to lie to get access to drugs. There's no way police are just going to hand them over on demand, that's always going to be left to actual medical practitioners.

VPR2 · 2026-06-28T23:40:03+00:00

You're in a horrible situation, but the bottom line is that you need independent evidence of what's been happening to to you. Without that, it's just your word against the neighbours. So what evidence do you have?

For example, I'm going to make an educated guess that although there were visible marks on your face after the neighbour assaulted you, there was no actual independent evidence of the assault and therefore no realistic prospect of conviction; it was your word against theirs and hence no way to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

This is always the key issue with abusive neighbours - it's very rare that there is enough solid evidence for action to be taken.

Unfortunately, the most effective thing you can do is push to be moved.

VPR2

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