In this case there were three barristers who attended at Court to represent a Defendant.  Two barristers did preliminary administrative hearings and one barrister did the trial.  The National Taxing Team in their infinite wisdom decided that all barristers should be paid the same fee and reduced the trial fee for Counsel who represented the successful Defendant at trial.

Their stance in this case is quite amazing that effectively to be submitted with a fee note from barrister’s chambers indicating an agreed fee for a trial they have effectively withheld money from the barrister on the assumption that he should have been paid the same as the person who did the first preliminary hearing.

I hope anybody who reads this have any further problems with the National Taxing Team takes up the cudgel and beats them back with their own stick swamping them with complaints and queries from all successful solicitors.

For them to simply withhold money on an assumption without any evidence that the barrister should be paid the same is one of the most appalling decisions I have ever seen.

The only problem with this is MOTs are only valid for one day and when a car can be failed on MOT because a windscreen wiper may provide a smear on the screen or a back licence plate bulb is out is utterly scandalous.

The former England player and notably the first person to be sent off during World Cup Finals as an England player looks like he is about to be sent off the road for this misdemeanour.

Not to worry Sky TV will probably have a driver to be able to take him to the studio.

This type of case clearly highlights the problems with the system.

This man will have been sent a letter to his last known address and the Courts in their infinite wisdom have no knowledge whether or not the letter has ever been received or acted upon and simply proceed to issue arrest warrants for people.

We recently had a case exactly similar to this at Newport Magistrates’ Court where a man received no notification of a Court hearing date and was arrested on the warrant and held in custody for an offence he had no knowledge that had ever been committed.

It is about time the Courts realised that if they want people to attend Court they must do something to ensure that people are told about going to Court like for example sending letters on recorded delivery and then there will be a confirmation signature that people are aware of the Court hearing.

Steven Pienaar is a classic example of where a man’s reputation and/or livelihood can be seriously damaged.

He has tried to give the impression that he simply made a mistake following the death of his wife.

This was not a mistake, it was a deliberate, premeditated attempt to avoid points on his licence and this is exactly the type of situation that the authorities should look into and prosecute.

This man has not made a mistake about who was driving his car on four separate occasions.  He would have been told when the offence was and no doubt he can remember his wife died.  This man deserved immediate imprisonment not for perverting the course of justice but for showing complete lack of respect to his deceased wife.

What a joke.  This man has had his refund reduced purely and simply because inefficiency in one government department lead to another government department taking great joy in reducing his fees.

This is a complete travesty of justice because people have been accused of a crime that ultimately they had not been convicted of and have had to spend money defending themselves especially as Legal Aid is cut further and further.

However the amount of money that you will get back is only dependent on the amount of hours the solicitor has worked on your case.  It generally depends on the number of hours work that has been put into a case that the National Taxing Team will reimburse.  However they have a policy of deliberately trying to reduce the amount of money they reimburse as a cost cutting exercise on behalf of the government.

For people to promise you at 100 per cent of your fees back is misleading as the only amount of money you will get back is what the National Taxing Team considers is appropriate.

Before anybody embarks on paying legal fees for representation please set a good idea of what you will get back if you do win your case before you embark on the case.

Clearly an irresponsible and careless young woman carrying out the stupidity of driving at this limit but what were the people she was drinking with in the pub thinking about letting her get into the car.

She was incredibly lucky to be given a suspended prison sentence based purely on the fact that her five children would have suffered if she had gone to jail.  Would the Court have been as lenient with the father, I suspect not.

I hope she learns from her lesson and takes care of her children more appropriately in the future.

Citing moving to a high crime area they justified cancelling her policy.  Do Tesco not think car thieves walk 100 yards to steal cars.  How can a move of 100 yards justify Tesco behaving in this way.

All car insurance companies are quite happy to take extra premiums when somebody transgresses at 35 miles an hour in a speeding area probably putting up premiums in excess of £100 per year but when there is a possibility that they might have to pay out they simply refuse to take the insurance on.

Tesco have effectively disqualified this lady from driving for moving house.  Perhaps they should reconsider their position on this.  What do you think?

Perhaps we could check with Tesco whether they could consider insuring Audi motorists any further or these drivers could similarly be refused insurance because they have bought a dodgy car.