4. Mr A complains that HMCTS wrongly banned him from driving despite his successful appeal against its first judgement. He also says HMCTS failed to tell the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) that he had successfully appealed his ban.
5. Mr A explains that because of this he almost lost his job, he experienced stress and financial loss due to paying for public transport.
6. Mr A wants a financial payment of £40,000 and service improvements.
7. In November 2021 a court disqualified Mr A from driving for six months. At the time, the court was told that Mr A intended to appeal its decision, so it suspended the disqualification until the appeal was heard. It also told Mr A (in a formal notice of disqualification) that if he abandoned his appeal before it was heard, his disqualification would start immediately.
8. The notice stated that Mr A would need to reapply to DVLA to renew his licence and he could do this up to two months before his disqualification was due to end.
9. It would seem that Mr A’s appeal was not considered straight away. In the meantime, he checked DVLA’s website which said he had been disqualified until May 2022. It also recorded a note inviting him to reapply for his licence. For this reason, Mr A assumed the original ban had now expired so he saw little point in chasing his appeal and he withdrew it.
10. Mr A then applied to renew his licence. In October 2022 DVLA replied saying he had applied too early. DVLA told him he was disqualified from driving until February 2023. This meant he should not reapply until December 2023 (it later corrected this to December 2022).
11. When Mr A queried this with DVLA, it told him its information was correct. It said HMCTS had told it that Mr A had formally abandoned his appeal (in August 2022). This meant that, in line with the terms of the disqualification notice issued in November 2021, his driving ban was no longer suspended and had come into force in August 2022.
12. Mr A complained to HMCTS about what had happened. He said it had provided incorrect information to DVLA about his disqualification. HMCTS did not uphold his complaint, explaining it found no mistakes in the way his case was handled. It explained to Mr A why his driving ban had first been suspended and then enforced when he withdrew his appeal. It said there had been no administrative errors.
15. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not seen any signs that something has gone wrong.
16. We must make clear that we cannot take a view on the decision to disqualify Mr A from driving or the decision to suspend and later enforce the disqualification. This is because the law says we cannot look at any actions or decisions made by a judge. We can look only at HMCTS’s administrative responsibilities which in this case, was to let the relevant parties know (Mr A and DVLA) about the disqualification.
17. The evidence suggests that HMCTS told Mr A and DVLA, about the judge’s decision to disqualify him from driving. It also let the parties know that the disqualification was suspended pending an appeal. We would not have expected HMCTS to have done more.
18. When Mr A withdrew his appeal, HMCTS told DVLA. This was in line with its administrative responsibilities. Our Principles say we expect organisations to act in line with their duties. We are satisfied that HMCTS did this.
19. Mr A has told us how upset and inconvenienced he was about what happened. He told us that in his view he had been banned from driving not once (which he would have accepted) but twice. He said these events caused massive stress for him and his family and he almost lost his job. He said the whole situation left him ‘confused’.
20. As we have explained, we cannot look at the decision to disqualify Mr A. But, we have looked at whether HMCTS’s action caused or added to Mr A’s confusion.
21. We have seen no suggestion that HMCTS misled Mr A. The original notification made clear that although Mr A had been disqualified from driving, that disqualification would not come into force until his appeal against it had been decided. It also made clear that if he withdrew his appeal, the disqualification would be enforced.
22. All of this meant Mr A was free to drive until his appeal was heard but, if he withdrew his appeal, the ban would start at that point (and would run for six months). We can see that HMCTS explained this to Mr A when it replied to his complaint. This is line with our Principles that we expect organisations to aim to be clear with customers about what to expect and to communicate effectively using clear language.
23. It seems Mr A may have mistakenly thought his ban from driving had started in November 2021 and ended in May 2022. This is partly because of the information he got from DVLA’s website. If Mr A feels he has been misled by the information on the DVLA website this is a matter he would need to take up with DVLA. We can see that HMCTS also told him this when replying to his complaint.
24. We would add that if Mr A decides to complain to DVLA about what happened, and he is unhappy with its response, he can ask an MP to bring his concerns to us. By law, he should take his concerns to an MP within 12 months of the events complained about. For this reason, if he does return to us with a new complaint about DVLA, we may ask him to explain why he did not go to an MP about this earlier.
25. We understand this is not the decision Mr A had hoped for but thank him for bringing his concerns to our attention.
1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and we have seen no signs that anything went seriously wrong.
2. We understand this is not the outcome that Mr A had hoped for and this has been a difficult time for him. We hope our decision has not caused him to experience any more frustration.
3. The below paragraphs explain our decision in detail.