Points and Bans

Received a Single Justice Procedure Notice? Your 21 days, explained

Written and reviewed by a practising criminal barrister · Law stated as at 27 August 2026

What the letter actually is

The Single Justice Procedure was introduced in 2015 and now carries an enormous share of the summary caseload: around 196,000 cases were received in a single quarter of 2025, of which roughly 78% were summary motoring matters. Speeding alone accounted for 31% of all defendants.

It is available only for offences that cannot be punished with imprisonment, and only where the defendant is 18 or over. So it covers speeding, using a mobile phone while driving, driving without insurance, failing to give the driver's details, and careless driving. It does not cover drink driving, drug driving or dangerous driving. Those carry prison and are always dealt with in a courtroom.

A single magistrate reads your case on paper, advised by a legal adviser, with no hearing, no prosecutor present and no defendant present. They cannot hear live evidence from anyone.

The 21 days: which date, and how firm

The notice tells you that you have 21 days from the date printed on it. The Criminal Procedure Rules put it slightly differently, allowing 15 business days from when the papers were served, which in an ordinary week without bank holidays works out a little longer.

Do not spend that difference. Work to the 21 days on the letter. It is the date the court works to, and the one you would have to explain away.

If the deadline has already passed, reply anyway. A case is only decided when a magistrate picks the file up, and the backlog is substantial — 137,210 cases were open at the end of March 2025. A late reply that arrives before the file is read is often simply dealt with.

Your three options

The pack contains a separate notice for each. There is also a fourth, the automatic online conviction option, which you can disregard: it applies only to rail and tram ticket offences and fishing without a licence. No driving offence is on the list.

The point most people miss

This is the part that matters if there is any prospect of a ban.

If the magistrate reading your papers proposes to disqualify you — an obligatory disqualification, a discretionary one, or a totting-up ban once you reach 12 points — the court must give you the opportunity to make representations about it. If you say you want to make them, the case cannot stay in the paper procedure. It is adjourned and you are summonsed to attend.

Two things follow from that, and they point in opposite directions.

The protection is real. You cannot be banned on the papers without being asked first.

But it is only as good as your address and your attention, because the question arrives as another letter. If that letter goes unanswered, the magistrate can go ahead and disqualify. People are banned without ever having been inside a courtroom, and the usual reason is that they stopped opening the post.

There is a second reason. An argument that a ban would cause exceptional hardship cannot be run on paper at all. It is evidence, given on oath, at a hearing. So is an argument that there are special reasons not to endorse or disqualify. Neither exists as a box on the form.

What happens if you do nothing

The magistrate tries the case in your absence on the prosecution's documents. In practice:

• No credit for a guilty plea. Up to a third off the fine, lost.
• No financial information from you. Where the court has no reliable information about income, it proceeds on an assumed relevant weekly income of £440. That is more than many people actually earn, and the fine is a percentage of it.
• No mitigation, and nothing about your circumstances.
• Points endorsed, or a ban imposed, with nothing from your side of it.

The fine, the victim surcharge of 40% on top, and the prosecution costs then become a debt that can be taken from wages or benefits. Not replying is the most expensive of the choices available, and it is the one three quarters of people make.

If the notice never reached you

Post goes missing, and people move. If you did not know about the notice or the proceedings until after the case was decided, you can make a statutory declaration saying so. Made within 21 days of finding out, it makes the conviction and everything that followed from it void, and the case begins again before different magistrates.

That 21 days can be extended if it was not reasonable to expect you to manage it sooner, but the sensible course is to move quickly once you know.

A note on costs

Pleading guilty by post and pleading guilty at a hearing attract the same credit, so asking to attend does not cost you the third. What differs is prosecution costs, which are higher after a contested trial than after an early guilty plea. That is a real factor to weigh. It is not a reason to plead guilty to something you did not do.

Common questions

Is a Single Justice Procedure conviction a criminal conviction?

Yes. It is a conviction in a magistrates' court and it goes on your record in the ordinary way, whether you replied or not.

Can I get an extension of the 21 days?

There is no formal extension to apply for. Reply as soon as you can even if the date has passed, because the case is decided when the file is read rather than on day 22.

What if I was not the driver?

Then you should not be pleading guilty to driving. Be careful, though, that the charge is what you think it is: a separate offence of failing to give the driver's details carries six points in its own right, and it is committed by the registered keeper who does not answer, not by whoever was behind the wheel.

Will I have to go to court?

Not if you plead guilty and leave it to the single magistrate. You will if you plead not guilty, if you ask to attend, or if the court decides a disqualification needs to be dealt with at a hearing.

Can I be disqualified without going to court?

Yes, if you do not respond. The court must offer you the chance to make representations about a proposed disqualification, but if you do not take it up, the ban can be imposed on the papers.

Does pleading guilty by post get me a smaller fine?

Pleading guilty at the first opportunity reduces the fine by up to a third however you do it. Sending your financial details usually matters more, because the fine is calculated as a percentage of weekly income and the court assumes £440 a week if you tell it nothing.