Settled status and driving convinction

Dear forum members,

I am writing on behalf of my husband who is an EU citizen recently applied for the settled status (beta).
He is a holder of a permanent residence card (blue booklet, issued 2,5 years ago). He lived and worked in the UK for the last 20 years.

2 years ago (after PR card issued) he had an unfortunate accident where the car knocked him down from the motorbike. During examination of his vehicle the breaks were found to be not in the best condition (brake fluid?). Due the accident and him going straight to the hospital the matter couldn't be dealt with at the scene and went in court and he was charged a fine and got 3 points on his licence (CU10 Using a vehicle with defective brakes. One of the 'construction and use' category of motoring offences).

Appying with the EU exit app in Criminality checks section we answered "Yes" to the question "Do you have any criminal convictions" and "No" the next question about the convictions in the last 12 months.

I am worried sick now that we did the wrong thing answering "Yes" in this section? Do these kind of offences need to be decared? We didn't want to risk NOT to declare. Will it affect the application?

P.S. Automatic application system offered "settled" status and we received COA by email. We have no official answer yet to application.

Thanks.

nmpfek2020 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:46 pm

Due the accident and him going straight to the hospital the matter couldn't be dealt with at the scene and went in court and he was charged a fine and got 3 points on his licence (CU10 Using a vehicle with defective brakes. One of the 'construction and use' category of motoring offences).

Appying with the EU exit app in Criminality checks section we answered "Yes" to the question "Do you have any criminal convictions" and "No" the next question about the convictions in the last 12 months.

I am worried sick now that we did the wrong thing answering "Yes" in this section? Do these kind of offences need to be decared? We didn't want to risk NOT to declare. Will it affect the application?

Don't be worried - a fine and 3 points on his licence are not a criminal conviction: they're driving offences. Technically you could have said 'No', but it doesn't matter that you declared it and it's unlikely to affect the application.
Criminal offences that could affect a settled status application are those involving prison sentences of 12+ months.

To correct my answer slightly: I've seen a post on another forum where the OP had a fine for speeding 10 years ago and appeared in court, as he had an international driving licence.
The advice given to him was to declare the fine in the section about Criminal Convictions - it's important to declare fines such as these, as the deception element of not declaring might be more serious than the fine itself. So if you were not declaring a minor conviction that's unlikely to affect your application, the very fact of not declaring it could affect your application as it could be deemed to be deceptive.
A speeding fine is a fine for breaching the criminal law on speeding, so should be declared and the OP won't be refused Settled Status because of it.
So your husband did the right thing in declaring his motoring offence
I had a similar situation with my PR application - I declared 5 motoring-related offences: not paying congestion charge, entering a bus lane, entering a box junction, etc. They were all fines with no points taken off the licence, but I declared them. Got PR with no issues.