You b****r
I just spent ages looking that all up in the blue book and on line and you've gone and stolen my thunder!!!!!
10 out of 10 though, good work
On a serious note though, I think the confusion here comes not from what Robin has said but rather from what he has not said.
I think there is a very important distinction to make here.
Robin appears, quite reasonably to have assumed that the most likely outcome of contravening a TRO would be a fixed penalty notice. As explained above by Jazzy that is a £30 pound, non endorsable fine that would not result in a criminal record but.....
That is not the
only possible outcome!
The police are not required to use, or offer you a fixed penalty notice that is entirely at their discretion. Yes, if a police office just happens to spot you riding out of a TROed lane by chance this will be an attractive option because it represents a lot less work for them and deals effectively with the matter in hand but be warned!
We know from recent experience in several counties that the police (and possibly the CPS) are suseptible to political pressure when dealing with this kind of issue. I see no particular reason why this should not attract the same kind of response as a s34 RTA matter.
One other point to bear in mind. The police and I believe PCSOs can issue fixed penalty notices but it may not necessarily be the police who bring the prosecution. I have it on good authority that a certain county council are currently pursuing a number of prosecutions for "contravening a TRO" themselves. One reason for this may be that they were not satisfied that the approach taken by the police was sufficiently robust.
Thats to say that they may not consider a £30 fixed penalty to be a sufficient deterent and want to ensure that it goes to court where the fine will inevitably be higher (+ costs of course).
Understandably the authority in question are not willing to give any more detail about this matter (ie who has been caught, where, how or exactly what offences they are going to face) but it will be intersting to see what the outcome is.
Hope that clears it up a bit and thanks for the question, that was a good one.
I'll have to watch that jazzy as well, looks like he's after my job (now all I have to do is work out who it is
).
Cheers
Richard