“Red Light Offence”

Help! Help! Got 3 tickets at the same time!

On Oct. 5 last year I was in the third south bounding car waiting to turn left at Donmills and Sheppard when the light turned amber. The light was still amber when it was my turn to go, so I turned and the light turned red when I was half way through. I was then pulled over by a police car and handed over my package of document on request with my photo copied ownership card and two ins cards, one current and one outdated, in a clear plastic jacket. The police officers, two of them with one standing on each side of my car, went back to their car for half an hour and came to hand me a ticket. It was not until I got home that I noticed there were three tickets, one for red light, one for failing to surrender ins card and one for failing to surrender ownership.

My court date will be in mid Aug and I am planning to fight in court for the tickets to be quashed on the ground that

1). The RED LIGHT OFFENCE ticket was not sighed. There is no signature, no officer No., no platoon and no unit No.

2). There was a current and valid sin card in the jacket that I gave to the two young officers They only saw the outdated ins card and didn't even bother to look at the one that was valid.

3) The photocopied ownership card should be considered valid as there are two drivers for the car. My husband carries the original and I carry the photocopied. My husband used to carry the photocopied and has surrendered it to police before. There was never a problem.

I don't know how the judge would respond to these. Anyone has a better idea for stronger defence? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

1) No signature should be a fatal error, assuming it's a hand written (not printed) ticket.

2) It's your responsibility to surrender the valid insurance slip, not the officers to find the correct one.

3) Photocopies are only acceptable if they're "true" copies. That means front AND back of the ownership along with the current validation sticker.

Stanton,

Thanks so much for the information. It's very nice of you to share it. This helps me prepare my trail. The photo copied ownership card does have both sides of the original with the stickers on it. The clearly transparent plastic jacket had only the ownership and insurance cards in it, nothing else. The officer could easily see them and therefore, they just took it from me and went back to their car without asking me to take the documents out to show them. If I use this to defend myself in court, would that be enough to convince the judge? Please advice.

Hwang