Enforcement of Fines

Fines are by far the most common sentence imposed by the Magistrates' Court, but occasionally they are applied at the wrong rate or defaulted on.

The Magistrates' Court is responsible for any application made in respect of fines after they have been imposed. That includes fines imposed by the Crown Court.

As there are a lot of fines there are also quite a lot of fines applications, so special court sessions are set aside for that purpose.

Remission of fines

By far the most common application is by offenders who have been convicted in their absence. In the absence of information to the contrary, the court will assume these offenders are in paid employment and pitch any fine accordingly. If it later transpires that they earn less than the assumed amount, then the court can adjust the fine to reflect their actual income.

This power is available under section 85 of the Magistrates' Court Act 1980. It is entirely discretionary, but the court will normally make such an adjustment if the offender goes to the trouble of making an application.

An example to illustrate the point: Suppose a non-attender was convicted of driving without insurance. This would normally result in a Band C fine. The court would assume they were in employment with an income of £440 a week. This would result in a Band C fine of £660 and a surcharge, at today's rate, of £264. This would give a total payable to the court of £924. They would probably also have to pay costs, but that is always at the discretion of the court.

If it later transpired that they were in receipt of benefits then their weekly income would be assumed to be £120. In those circumstances a Band C fine would be £180 and the surcharge would be £72. That would give a total payable to the court of £192. Again, they would probably have to pay costs on top of that.

In this example the court would remit the difference between the two values (e.g. £924 - £192), which would have the effect of reducing their outstanding balance by £732. They would only need to pay the correctly calculated figure of £192.

Variation of fine repayments

In theory fines imposed by the court are immediately repayable. I have older colleagues who reminisce about days gone by when the Presiding Justice would ask a just-convicted offender how much money they had in their wallet or purse and send them straight to the payment window in the court foyer. It wasn't a bad strategy, because it often deprived them of funds that would have been converted into drink or drugs later in the day.

Nowadays people tend not to carry much cash and courts tend not to have fine payment windows. That being the case the court usually adopts the pragmatic approach of ordering payment of fines by instalment. I'm a strong proponent of pragmatism, as regular readers will have no doubt noticed.

The court will take account of the offender's means and circumstances when determining a payment plan, but occasionally the offender finds they are unable to meet the repayments. In that situation it is absolutely imperative that they let the court know about their difficulties.

Section 85A of the 1980 Act allows the offender to apply to the court for a variation of the repayment plan. The court has the discretion to grant such a variation and usually will if the offender has gone to the trouble of making an application.

Defaulting on fine repayments

If an offender defaults on their fine repayments the matter is likely to be referred back to the court for further enquiries to be made.

Section 83 of the 1980 Act allows the court to issue either a summons or warrant to secure the offender's attendance.

The court will seek to establish the reasons for the default and make arrangements for payments going forward. This may well involve variation of repayment terms, as mentioned earlier.

If, and only if, the court is satisfied that the offender has the means to pay, but willfully refuses to do so, will it make a warrant of committal in respect of further default.

Prison is the absolute last resort, when all other options have been exhausted.

Fine enforcement case study

Fine enforcement is very much at the more mundane end of the spectrum, but occasionally an interesting case crops up.

This particular day a company was listed to appear before the fines court. It was having difficulty repaying a fine imposed by the Crown Court. The company, which was in the road haulage business, had been convicted of a serious health and safety breach resulting in the death of an employee. It had been fined £500k and the Judge had set payment terms of £50k a month.

It was a family business and one of the directors, a member of the family, turned up to represent the company. She explained that the company recognised its obligations to pay the fine and wanted to do so as promptly as possible, but circumstances meant it was struggling to get the funds together.

The director explained that there were health concerns in the family and the company's expenditure on fuel had increased by around £10k every month since the fine was imposed. She expressed concern that business was difficult enough without having to find an extra £50k a month. She was worried the company would need to make drivers redundant in order to make ends meet. The director was very genuine and visibly upset at the situation.

The court was quite satisfied at the account the director had given and was amenable to varying the company's repayments. The outstanding balance was around £400k, which the director indicated the company could discharge at a rate of £20k a month. The court accepted that offer, allowing two months for the first repayment as it was getting towards Christmas time.

The relief on the lady's face was evident to all. She seemed quite moved at the court's humanity. She had clearly anticipated that the court might dig its heels in.

The company, I am pleased to say, is still trading and didn't have to make any drivers redundant. It has now discharged its debt in full.