Piggott v Director of Public Prosecutions

For an offence under Road Traffic Act 1988, section 7(6), the statutory question is whether the defendant had a reasonable excuse for failing to provide a specimen. The statute does not require the defendant to notify the requesting officer, or anyone else, of the medical condition relied upon.

Failure to mention a known condition remains highly relevant evidence. It may justify a finding that the failure was wilful or that the later excuse was not reasonable. However, notification is not an additional legal precondition to relying on reasonable excuse. Information given to another officer may be sufficient, although it is not necessary.

The appellant was convicted by Sheffield Magistrates' Court of failing to provide breath specimens without reasonable excuse, contrary to section 7(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Accepted medical evidence established that asthma and hyperventilation syndrome provided a medical reason for her failure, and the magistrates' reasoning indicated that she had made genuine attempts to provide specimens.

The magistrates nevertheless convicted her because she had not informed the officer obtaining the specimens of her condition, although she might have mentioned it to another officer who witnessed the procedure. The appeal by case stated concerned whether informing the other officer was sufficient, or whether notification to the requesting officer was legally essential.

1. Appeal allowed. The conviction was quashed and the matter remitted for the penalty to be dealt with. The court answered the first question in the case stated “No” and the second “Sufficient, yes, but not necessary.”
2. In an appeal by case stated, the parties and the court are bound by the case as stated. Further evidence of what the magistrates found is inadmissible unless included in the stated case. A dissatisfied party should seek judicial review for mandamus requiring the case to be amended or restated. The case must nevertheless be read as a whole and in a common-sense manner.
3. Section 7(6) asks whether the failure to provide a specimen was without reasonable excuse. It does not impose a separate requirement that the excuse must have been communicated when the specimen was required. A known medical condition that is not mentioned may be powerful evidence that the failure was wilful, but that is an evidential question for the magistrates.
4. The court rejected the wider observations of Forbes J in Teape v Godfrey that knowledge of a medical condition necessarily creates a duty to disclose it to the requesting officer. Those observations were obiter and were correctly criticised in McClory v Owen-Thomas and DPP v Kinnersley.
5. The policy that disclosure might enable an officer to require blood or urine instead of breath under section 7(3)(a) did not justify adding a non-statutory limitation to the criminal defence. The decision in R (on the application of Martiner) v DPP was concerned with deliberate refusal or failure to attempt a specimen and did not govern a genuine but unsuccessful attempt caused by a medical condition.

High Court (Administrative Court): allowed an appeal by case stated from the conviction of Sheffield Magistrates' Court, quashed the conviction and remitted the penalty.