Clause 7 - Notification of court and date of trial
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
10:00 am
Mr David Lock (Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department; Wyre Forest, Labour)
We envisage that there will be separate notices. An offender will be given a fixed penalty notice and told that if he wants to challenge it in a court, the trial is likely to take place at the specified time and venue.
On which court the trial would be held in, I imagine that the same rules that apply to any other offence will also apply. The police officer who observes an offence will give a fixed penalty notice as an alternative to the offence being tried in court. However, should the recipient wish to have the fixed penalty notice set aside and have the matter tried, the same provisions would apply as would apply if the police officer had arrested the individual and charged him with the offence. Therefore, the offence would be tried in the same court as if it were not dealt with by a fixed penalty notice.