What if it's not me in the photo?

What if it's not me in the photo?

My car was flashed by a radar camera and the police opened an investigation against me for speeding. I wasn't at the wheel, but I'm no informer. As the vehicle is in my name, do I risk being convicted even though I didn't commit any offence?

It can happen that the driver responsible for a road traffic offence cannot be identified, at least not immediately. In such circumstances, it is accepted that the criminal authorities may initially assume that the owner of the vehicle in question was also the driver when the offence was committed.

A conviction is only possible, however, if it is established to the satisfaction of law that the keeper of the vehicle was indeed the perpetrator of the offence. This means that the keeper of the vehicle can rebut the presumption that he was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offence by providing plausible explanations, in particular concerning his presence at another location, or by demonstrating that the vehicle was available to an indeterminate number of people at the time.

Thus, if the person concerned denies having been at the wheel of the vehicle when the offence was committed, it is up to the criminal authorities to establish the guilt of the alleged perpetrator, on the basis of all the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offence in question.

Consequently, during the investigation, account will have to be taken, for example, of the place where the offence was committed and its possible proximity to the vehicle keeper's place of residence or work, his or her 'alibi' at the time the offence was committed, or the vehicle keeper's demonstration that other people had the keys to the vehicle.

In a number of decisions handed down by the courts in recent years, cases in which the keeper of the vehicle was convicted even though he disputed that he was at the wheel at the time of the offence clearly illustrate the above: in one of these cases, the investigation established that the mobile phone of the person concerned was in the vehicle at the time of the offence (telephone records and boundary markings in support); in another case, the holder of the vehicle had indeed declared that he was taking part in a work meeting at the time of the offence, but the minutes of this meeting did not mention his presence...

In conclusion, it can be said that the fact of being the owner of a vehicle involved in a traffic offence is not in itself sufficient to justify a conviction.