Parking fine dodgers to get off scot-free
Up to $250,000 worth of unpaid parking fines seem set to be written off.
It follows a climbdown by Bermuda's senior prosecutor which has let dozens of parking fine dodgers off the the hook.
An appeal lodged by Attorney General Elliott Mottley against a decision by magistrate Edward King to waive parking ticket fines issued 12 months ago was expected to be heard earlier this week.
But at the last minute the appeal was withdrawn allowing Mr. King's initial ruling on about 100 offenders to stand.
And that means that a further 3,000 offenders whose tickets were issued more than six months ago could also get off scot-free.
Some $250,000 worth of unpaid fines -- issued in the first half of the year -- are likely to be written off.
Mr. Mottley confirmed that the appeal had been dropped.
"We have decided to withdraw the appeal,'' he said.
"That's not a personal decision, it's a decision based on law -- I don't make personal decisions.
"I don't like to make statements but you can read between the lines.'' Mr. Mottley insisted that the decision only affected those cases that had already gone before the court and would not effect pending cases.
But senior court administrator Tracey Kelly admitted that the outstanding summonses for parking tickets issued between January and June last year -- estimated to be about 3,000 offenders who have still not come to court -- were now on the back burner.
"I am not saying that the door has closed on those offenders,'' Mr. Kelly said.
"But we are now issuing summonses for tickets issued from last July. About 510 summonses have gone out for them and they will be in court in February. We are waiting for a decision on tickets issued earlier than that.
"But just because one magistrate rejects them that doesn't mean to say that another magistrate won't hear them.'' But when asked if it was likely that those cases would be prosecuted, Senior Magistrate Will Francis said: "probably not''.
"I am a little surprised by the Attorney General's decision but he has obviously looked at it a little more closely and decided not to go ahead with it,'' Mr. Francis said.
"I will now have to sit down with Mr. Kelly and decide what we are going to do with these outstanding cases.'' The backlog has been caused by the installation of a new court computer system at the end of 1996.
"We went on line in December 96 and it's true to say that we have definitely had our share of problems in getting everything working,'' Mr. Kelly said.
"Computerisation means that we can go through the process a lot quicker but there were parts of the software that just weren't working.
"We have had to make do with a part manual and part computerised system but I think those problems are now behind us.
"But we are still going to have to put on extra parking courts to deal with everyone.'' The fiasco began last November when magistrate Edward King dismissed about 50 cases of unpaid parking fines after he realised that the tickets had all been issued about 12 months previously. The law states that unpaid fines should come before court within six months.
Motorists escape parking fines Mr. King made the same ruling in court a week later, dismissing another batch of offenders for the same reason.
This time he faced stiff opposition from prosecutors Brian Calhoun and Larry Mussenden who argued that the tickets were still valid. Following a heated and often ill-tempered argument Mr. King decided to stick to his guns, prompting the Attorney General to demand an appeal.
And two weeks ago Mr. Francis adjourned the cases of a further 12 offenders pending the outcome of the appeal.