Allowing the police to deal with certain minor infractions themselves is far more efficient than the alternative; ordering every offender to appear before a magistrates' court even for the most minor infraction, such as a speeding ticket.
Both of those i had to appeal and won instantly when talking to the magistrate.
Allowing these morons to issue fines and penalties for more complicated issues such as in this case is a very bad idea.
This is a fine principle provided that someone innocent who defends themselves successfully in court will then be compensated so they don't lose out in any way. The reality appears to be that for things like minor traffic offences, you can wind up spending more time and far more money travelling to have your day in court than you would have lost if you just paid up under protest, and you might also be risking a higher penalty if the court does find you guilty of exactly what you were previously charged with.
With motoring offences there is also the points system to consider, so it might be worth going to court for that reason. However, generally someone prosecuted but found not guilty in the UK doesn't seem to get any sort of compensation for even actual financial losses they incur defending themselves, never mind the value of their lost time or anything to make up for the obvious distress for an extended period that going to court in these cases is likely to cause.
It's rather like the small claims track. In principle, it's a worthy public service. In practice, for a professional with a full time job and family commitments who is working without expert advice because the point is to avoid involving expensive lawyers in low-value cases, the time just to figure out how to file against someone without jeopardizing your case before it's even started is prohibitive.
I take comfort in the fact that the authorities very rarely make completely baseless accusations. There are certainly cases in which officers were mistaken, there are mitigating circumstances, or you can avoid punishment on a technicality, but I can't think of any instances in which authorities have been caught issuing vexatious fixed penalty notices.
Why must it always be costly? It is a perfectly rational alternative policy to bring a smaller number of prosecutions, and to compensate defendants for their costs, wasted time and distress, if a prosecution fails.
I take comfort in the fact that the authorities very rarely make completely baseless accusations.
You might like to look up some of the published data about the proportion of appeals that succeed against things like local-authority-issued parking tickets and ANPR-based congestion charges. It happens all the time, and erroneous charges aren't even close to the kind of isolated incidents you seem to believe they are.
As a matter of fact, there have been plenty of stories of deliberate policies to issue penalties aggressively (and sometimes outright unlawfully), but this doesn't really matter to the victims anyway. Whether it was malicious on the part of the authorities or their enforcement people just got duped as in the cloning case you mentioned makes no difference at all to an innocent third party who gets slapped with a penalty notice they didn't deserve.
