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6 points on licence

A section for posts relating to applications for Naturalisation or Registration as a British Citizen. Naturalisation

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koira
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6 points on licence

Post by koira » Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:18 pm

Hi,

I am thinking of applying for naturalization in about 6 weeks time. I have had two Fixed Penalty Notices with 3 point endorsement in each case.

The first offense (CU80 - Using a mobile phone while driving a motor vehicle) took place in July 2008 and the second one (CU30 - Using a vehicle with defective tyre(s)) took place in Nov 2009.

Apart from the above offenses, the rest of the case is straight forward - I have been in UK for last 6 years on work permit/HSMP/Tier1 and employed through out.

Would the people with similar situation like me, please share their experience(s) here.

Also, if the decision in my case is not going to be a certain 'NO' then how may i increase the chances of getting a positive decision from Home Office, e.g., will it help submitting application through a reputable law firm etc.

Many thanks

lionking007
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Location: Birmingham

Re: 6 points on licence

Post by lionking007 » Wed Jun 22, 2011 5:38 am

koira wrote:Hi,

I am thinking of applying for naturalization in about 6 weeks time. I have had two Fixed Penalty Notices with 3 point endorsement in each case.

The first offense (CU80 - Using a mobile phone while driving a motor vehicle) took place in July 2008 and the second one (CU30 - Using a vehicle with defective tyre(s)) took place in Nov 2009.

Apart from the above offenses, the rest of the case is straight forward - I have been in UK for last 6 years on work permit/HSMP/Tier1 and employed through out.

Would the people with similar situation like me, please share their experience(s) here.

Also, if the decision in my case is not going to be a certain 'NO' then how may i increase the chances of getting a positive decision from Home Office, e.g., will it help submitting application through a reputable law firm etc.

Many thanks
If you declare it, should not be a problem. had 2 speeding offences on a motorway got a Fixed penalty declared it and citizenship was granted earlier this month

1664
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Post by 1664 » Wed Jun 22, 2011 6:53 am

I have read a few posts saying if you are honest and declare your driving offences there have been.no problems with the application I.e. a positive outcome.

Best wishes
1664.

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Casa
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Post by Casa » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:29 pm

If these were Fixed Penalty fines and not issued in court it shouldn't affect the BC application.

koira
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Post by koira » Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:54 pm

Casa wrote:If these were Fixed Penalty fines and not issued in court it shouldn't affect the BC application.
The fines were not issued in the court, however the licence paper counterpart has the first column called 'convicting court code' which is worrying me. Doesn't it mean these are court convictions after all (and different from e.g., fixed parking fines which are not endorsable).

Also, according to the Home Office guidelines, http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... ide_an.pdf on page 19 it says:
We will normally disregard a single conviction for a minor offence resulting in a bind over,
conditional discharge or relatively small fine or compensation order, if a person is suitable
for citizenship in all other respects. By “minor offenceâ€

1664
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Post by 1664 » Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:56 pm

for any of these offences, did you have to go to the court?
If no then you should be fine as long as you have declared them on your form.

If yes - am not sure what happens.

koira
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Post by koira » Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:26 pm

1664 wrote:for any of these offences, did you have to go to the court?
If no then you should be fine as long as you have declared them on your form.

If yes - am not sure what happens.
Does it make any difference whether you physcially were in the court or received 3+3 points on your licence counterpart which although does not say anything under 'conviction code' 'fine' 'disaqualification period' headings (as it was fixed penalty) but still has the 'convicting court code' which in my case is 2665.

On AN form, one must disclose any criminal conviction (including traffic offences). What's the difference between a criminal conviction and a traffic offence, by the way?

Many Thanks

addh
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Post by addh » Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:35 am

the UKBA website clearly states

"Your criminal record
We will carry out criminal record checks on all applications from people aged 10 and over.

You must also provide details of all civil proceedings which have resulted in a court order being made against you.

You must give details of all unspent criminal convictions. This includes road traffic offences but not fixed penalty notices (such as speeding or parking tickets) unless they were given in court. You must include all drink-driving offences. An explanation of unspent convictions is given below.

If you have an unspent conviction, your application for citizenship is unlikely to be successful. You should wait until the end of your rehabilitation period before applying."

so as long as u did not go to court, looks like u dont even have to dclare it on the form

addh
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Post by addh » Fri Jun 24, 2011 9:36 am

alhough it does mention as an example parking and speeding tickets......

koira
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Post by koira » Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:58 pm

Thanks for the posts guys. Looks like I should be ok even though using mobile phone whilst driving is a major offence according to Home Office guidelines.

Having said that, is not it anyway bazzare that you can be refused for having been convicted of a minor offence but someone with a fixed penalty for a major offence is likely to be granted naturalisation!

koira
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Post by koira » Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:56 pm

I called up to Home Office and asked them what do I tick on (yes or no) for question 3.6 on AN Form -

3.6 Do you have any criminal convictions in the UK or any other country (including traffic offenses) or any civil judgements made against you?

The lady on the phone from HO categorically said that I should tick 'No' as I did not go to court for either of the traffic offenses (hence was not convicted for traffic offenses) and those were just the fixed penalties. When I asked about whether or not I should send the license counterpart, her answer was similar to previous one that if i had endorsements from the court then I must send otherwise not required. She also said that fixed penalties don't show up in Criminal Record Check that we do so there is no question of you trying to withhold any information.

Based on the above conversation, the guidance notes and the above replies, I am pretty confident now that Fixed Penalties (over 12 months old) should not normally impact the citizenship application and you are not required to disclose those.

shs213
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Post by shs213 » Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:38 am

Officer at ncs asked if I had any points on my dl in the 12 months, said no... however had 6 points from before ilr period which was fine...

He phone HO then n there to confirm... took copies of my counter part if I remember correctly...

My point is, you will be fine, however take your counterpart with you ....

gidoc
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Post by gidoc » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:49 am

If you declare it, should not be a problem. had 2 speeding offences on a motorway got a Fixed penalty declared it and citizenship was granted earlier this month
These should not be in the past 12 months, you should have no more than one offence
3.6 You must give details of all civil judgments which have resulted in a court order being made against you. If you have been declared bankrupt at any time you should give details of the bankruptcy proceedings. (Your application is unlikely to succeed if you are an undischarged bankrupt).
You do not need to give details of family law proceedings such as divorce decrees dissolved civil partnerships, guardianship orders, parental responsibility orders.
You must give details of all criminal convictions both within and outside the United Kingdom. These include road traffic offences. Fixed penalty notices will not normally be taken in to account, unless you have had more than one fixed penalty notice in the last 12 months. In that case you may wish to wait to make your application until you have no more than one fixed penalty notice in the 12 month period before applying. Drink driving offences must be declared. If you have any endorsements on your driving licence you must provide the paper counterpart.
Please note that a driving conviction may not yet be spent despite any penalty points being removed from your driving licence
.

Rolfus
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Post by Rolfus » Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:51 pm

Warning added in response to the comment below posted by smkamran:
This post is not intended as advice, it is comment on the intensely political nature of the criteria applicable for naturalisation. It contains statements that are intended to be understood as reductio ad absurdam. I hope it will raise the morale of those who are battling against an often incomprehensible system.

It's very interesting that you can be excluded from British Citizenship for a criminal conviction overseas for doing something that would be legal if done in the UK.

For example:
Homosexuality in Barbados ;
Driving while being a woman in Saudi Arabia;
A rapist convicted of statutory rape in USA for consensual sxe with a 17 year old girl; [Be aware that when you press 'preview' the system substitutes 'gender' for the three letter word beginning with s and ending with x with an e in the middle. I have therefore typed sxe. Would someone in authority like to defend that policy?]
Drink driving with 0.0000001% alcohol in Russia;
Treason for being a doctor treating injured protesters in Bahrain;
Crimes against God in Iran;
Claiming there was an Armenian genocide in Turkey;
Denying there was an Armenian genocide in France;
Wearing a Burka in France or Belgium;
etc

And in the UK there is a clear (or so the Judges think) distinction between criminal convictions that need to be declared, and fixed penalty notices that don't.

But other jurisdictions have intermediate categories of "administrative offences"; or overriding truth and reconciliation commissions that allow you to confess to a little bit of murder and get immunity without a criminal conviction. Are you expected to declare them? They are not criminal convictions!

But why are they only denying citizenship to people who have been caught? If this is actually a matter of establishing good character, being convicted is irrelevant. Surely they should just ask applicants to make a declaration on oath that they have never committed any offence which might have resulted in a criminal conviction. It would be much simpler, and they could turn down all who answer yes, and then reject all who answer no for making a false statement. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

But it is reassuring to see that HMG has put their finger on the recklessness of driving with a one-day-expired tax disk. I am sure we all feel much safer for that!
Last edited by Rolfus on Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
civis europeus sum

smkamran
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Post by smkamran » Sat Jul 23, 2011 10:52 am

Rolfus: A straight forward answer/advise would have been better (without the political twist and references). Just my thought

mrlookforward
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Post by mrlookforward » Sat Jul 23, 2011 10:44 pm

koira wrote:
1664 wrote:for any of these offences, did you have to go to the court?
If no then you should be fine as long as you have declared them on your form.

If yes - am not sure what happens.
Does it make any difference whether you physcially were in the court or received 3+3 points on your licence counterpart which although does not say anything under 'conviction code' 'fine' 'disaqualification period' headings (as it was fixed penalty) but still has the 'convicting court code' which in my case is 2665.

On AN form, one must disclose any criminal conviction (including traffic offences). What's the difference between a criminal conviction and a traffic offence, by the way?

Many Thanks
There are two things.
1. FIXED PENALTY- This is handed down by police on the roadside. They give you a ticket asking you to pay an amount and/or surrender your driving license to be endorsed with points. Fixed penalty is not conviction.

2. CONVICTION- You get summons from court to answer charges brought by police/crown prosecution service or other public bodies. Whether you appear in court physically or plead guilty/not guilty by post is totally immaterial. Once the magistrate/judge pronounces guilty verdit, you get a criminal record. If you are fined as part of the judgement, then the rehabilitation period is 5 years. UKBA regards using mobile phone whilst driving as a serious offence. No chance of getting approved with this conviction.

koira
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Post by koira » Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:26 pm

shs213 wrote:Officer at ncs asked if I had any points on my dl in the 12 months, said no... however had 6 points from before ilr period which was fine...

He phone HO then n there to confirm... took copies of my counter part if I remember correctly...

My point is, you will be fine, however take your counterpart with you ....
Hi Shs213,

Are you sure that HO asked for the counterpart. I am asking this because I've 6 points on license from nearly 2 years ago and I called HO couple of times and on both occasions I was told that I don't need to send counter part if the offenses were Fixed Penalty Notices as these are not considered convictions.

Thanks

SONAKSHI
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Telephone number

Post by SONAKSHI » Mon Dec 03, 2012 1:00 pm

Which is the best number to call the HO. Whenever I try to call them there is no response for over an hour.
Many thanks in advance.
Less is More

zubair_hr
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Post by zubair_hr » Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:34 am

Hi Koira,

I have seen your post re 'British Citizenship' and I have same scenario and abou to apply for BC. Appreciate if you could share your experience with me.

1. I got 3 points on my licnece in Feb 2010 and £60 fixed penalty.
2. My counterpart was endorced exactly same as yours and offence was also same i.e. CU30 ' driving with defective tyres'. Apart from this i don't have any other offences at all.

Can you please help me with below

1. Did you select 'YES' to question 3.6 i.e. 'Have you been convicted of any criminal offence.......?

2. Did you send you counterpart with the application?

3. How long did it take you to get the citizen ship? was it more or less than 6 months?

4. As you know know that you have to pay for 'Ceremony' did you pay it together with application fee or separately afterwards?

5. Did you mention anything in 'Further information not covered in other section' page?

Is there any other advice that you would like to give.

I would really appreciate your prompt response.

Thank you
Zubair

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Post by Amber » Fri Aug 30, 2013 11:50 am

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