Photo: SWNS / foxnews.com
There’s wisdom in the saying “learn to pick your battles,” as one man from England is finding out after 3 years of legal proceedings to fight a speeding fine.
On a day trip to Worcester in 2016, Richard Keedwell from Yate, near Bristol, was clocked doing 35 mph in a 30 mph zone. A couple of days later, he received the notice at home and was informed that he would have to pay a £100 fine (about $123), he tells the BBC.
He decided he wouldn’t pay and chose to dispute the fine, certain that he was traveling within the posted speed limit and that the camera must have malfunctioned. Now, 3 years later, he’s burned through his son’s inheritance of about £30,000 ($37,000) in his quest for justice and, what’s worse, he will still have to pay that initial fine.
Keedwell tried to argue that the speeding camera was either flawed or had malfunctioned on the day in question, and he paid experts to look into his case and testify on his behalf in court. Adding attorney’s fees and the trips he had to take out of town for his court appearances, and you can see how his bill got so high.
Still, he believes what happened to him isn’t a classic Don Quixote-type of story but a sign of how messed up the legal system is.
“I'm sick and tired at the whole system which is steamrolling ordinary people,” he tells the media outlet. “I regret the amount of money. I very simply wanted justice.”
Keedwell says the entire thing has been “very stressful” to him and insists he believed his appeal would be a matter of days, not years. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) tells the BBC that the only reason why the proceedings took so long is that he brought in additional evidence, which complicated matters and brought up other issues that had to be addressed on separate dates.
He decided he wouldn’t pay and chose to dispute the fine, certain that he was traveling within the posted speed limit and that the camera must have malfunctioned. Now, 3 years later, he’s burned through his son’s inheritance of about £30,000 ($37,000) in his quest for justice and, what’s worse, he will still have to pay that initial fine.
Keedwell tried to argue that the speeding camera was either flawed or had malfunctioned on the day in question, and he paid experts to look into his case and testify on his behalf in court. Adding attorney’s fees and the trips he had to take out of town for his court appearances, and you can see how his bill got so high.
Still, he believes what happened to him isn’t a classic Don Quixote-type of story but a sign of how messed up the legal system is.
“I'm sick and tired at the whole system which is steamrolling ordinary people,” he tells the media outlet. “I regret the amount of money. I very simply wanted justice.”
Keedwell says the entire thing has been “very stressful” to him and insists he believed his appeal would be a matter of days, not years. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) tells the BBC that the only reason why the proceedings took so long is that he brought in additional evidence, which complicated matters and brought up other issues that had to be addressed on separate dates.
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