Down a one way street the wrong way

[G-MAN2004]

Back in Feb my mum accidentally went down a one way street the wrong way after her satnav told her to turn down it. There happened to be a police car a few cars behind which of course pulled her over and that was that. She apologised and admitted guilt because obviously she should have been paying more attention, etc. No disputing that.

She's just had the letter back from the magistrates court though and she's been fined £400 and three points...

Does this not seem rather high? Looking online, most websites say it will be £100 fine and three points.


What's annoying is that she provided all the details of her finances which clearly show she wouldn't be able to afford to pay anything close to this amount in such a short length of time, so now I'm going to have to lend it...

A mate of mine got less for speeding and surely that's more dangerous than this...

 

[G-MAN2004]

Why did it even go to magistrates court? This stuff is normally sorted with a 3 pts £100 conditional offer.

Did she fail to reply to the ticket?

She wasn't given a fine when it happened. They took her details, explained the charge and then she received a letter about 4 months later.

In this letter it asked her to tick either guilty or not guilty, and whether or not she wanted to go to court. She put guilty and said no. This was then sent back and delivered with about three weeks left on the time limit.

The officer did ask at the time if she consented to doing an awareness course if the opportunity was there which she of course said yes, but this was never offered in the letter.