'Robbie the Pict' loses speed camera test case

And senior judges who threw out 'Robbie the Pict's' appeal criticised him for taking up court time with the pursuit of "ill-founded technical arguments".

They said such "misuse" of the legal process was "not acceptable".

The case dates back to an incident in which the campaigner was clocked on the A74(M) near Annan in Dumfriesshire by a laser device in a van.

It was alleged that he was driving at 85mph. He was given three penalty points and fined 100.

Robbie the Pict, a community lawyer from the Isle of Skye, lodged an appeal, arguing that speed cameras and other speeding devices were illegal because they were never properly approved, according to the letter of the law.

The 61-year-old, described by the judges as a "well-known litigant", has said his was the UK's first authoritative test case challenging the legality of all speed camera evidence.

He previously said that his case, if successful, would mean some 600 million in fines had been unlawfully taken from motorists over the past 17 years. But today, judges at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh rejected his arguments.

Lord Carloway, who heard the case with Lords Emslie and Abernethy, ruled that "on the whole matter" the appeal would be refused.

In a written judgment released today, the judges said: "In doing so, it is worth observing again that this appellant has never stated positively that he was not 'speeding' on a 'motorway' at the material time.

"Yet this case has occupied days of evidence and submissions at District and Appellate Court levels.

"Virtually all of this time, and consequent public expense, has been taken up with the appellant's pursuit of ill-founded technical arguments in respect of an offence which ultimately attracted a modest fine and the minimum number of penalty points.

"Such misuse of the legal process is not acceptable."

The judgment added that the comments were made with no disrespect to the counsel who presented the appeal.

Robbie the Pict's case has taken more than two years to get to this stage.

It first called on April 4 2007 before the District Court of Dumfries and Galloway at Annan, in connection with the speeding allegation dating back to November 17 2006.

The case later went to trial before three Justices of the Peace and the campaigner was found guilty of the charge against him.

Robbie the Pict's appeal case, heard over one day in March this year in Edinburgh, had two key strands.

The first argument was that speed cameras are unlawful because they have not been properly approved by Parliament. Since July 1992 the Government has not implemented traffic cameras through the correct legal process, he claimed.

Currently the devices are signed off by the Home Secretary but Robbie the Pict said the law states that each different model of camera must be approved by statutory instrument, a technical term he describes as a mini Act of Parliament.

His second argument was to the effect that Scotland has no lawful motorway speed limits.

He argued that there was no enforceable speed limit on the A74(M), or any other Scottish motorway, because the subordinate legislation was never put in place to confirm the road's status in law.

In today's ruling, the appeal judges said they considered the evidence led by the Crown at the trial was "amply sufficient to entitle the justices to hold, as they did, that the relevant stretch of the A74(M) was a motorway for the purpose of the speed limit regulations on which the charge was based".

They went on: "Two experienced local police officers gave evidence to that effect, by reference to signage and other features, and, in our opinion, this evidence, if accepted, was of itself a sufficient basis for the conclusion reached."

They also said the "extreme consequences" of the campaigner's contentions would have to be taken into account, including the potential invalidation of all related convictions for motorway offences over the last two decades or more.

The judges said: "While such considerations would not of course be an absolute bar to sustaining a challenge held to be well-founded, they must, in our view, represent powerful reasons why the appellant's contentions should not lightly be upheld."