A lorry driver has had his conviction for driving without due care and attention on the M5 referred to the crown court after an expert report cast doubt on whether any offence took place.
An independent body set up to review alleged miscarriages of justice said there was a real possibility HGV driver Paul Down’s conviction would not be upheld after his solicitors found an expert to analyse the dashcam footage used during his trial.
Down was convicted at Cheltenham Magistrates’ Court in May 2024 after police officers in an unmarked police car claimed to have observed his HGV swerving in the motorway’s inside lane and over the hard shoulder line.
After pulling alongside him, the officers said they observed the lorry cross into the middle lane and then nearly collide with the police car.
Down was prosecuted and pleaded not guilty. Dashcam evidence was shown at his trial and the officers who stopped the driver gave evidence.
Down was found guilty, received six penalty points on his licence and hit with a £1,000 fine. He was also ordered to pay costs.
An appeal against the conviction at the Crown Court was dismissed in June 2024 and Down applied to the criminal cases review commission (CCRC) in December 2024.
The commission said that as part of its review it had received an expert report and this found that at no point in the dashcam footage could Down’s vehicle be seen to have encroached on or crossed over any of the lane lines.
The CCRC said the report would be admissible at court and the expert could be called to testify.
CCRC chair Dame Vera Baird KC said: “It is not well known that the CCRC has a statutory obligation to review cases, if an application comes to us, where there has been a conviction at the magistrates’ court and an appeal to the Crown Court has been dismissed.
“This is an equivalent duty to that we have for Crown Court cases which have been lost on appeal at the Court of Appeal Criminal Division.
“Although these are smaller cases, they can have a profound impact on the defendant if they are wrongly convicted.
“For instance, someone with a conviction may be unemployable in their trade; a conviction can trigger a Disclosure and Barring entry which might block someone, for life, from working with children.
“Yet often people are unrepresented at the magistrates’ court and the law is, arguably, less uniformly applied.”
Dame Baird added: “Happily, these cases are often far more quickly reviewed and actioned. The test for a referral is the same – that there is a real possibility that the conviction will be overturned and we are satisfied that our test is passed in this case.”
