What is a Fixed Penalty Notice?
A Fixed Penalty Notice is essentially an offer extended by the police – take the penalty offered and the matter will conclude without further proceedings. The police can issue Fixed Penalty Notices for certain types of endorsable offences, and in the case of such an offence you will have to surrender your licence to the police so that the penalty points can be endorsed on it. Although Fixed Penalty Notices are intended to deal with relatively low-level offences efficiently and without a court hearing, it is possible to contest a Fixed Penalty notice by going to court. The risk, however, in doing so is that the court finds that you are guilty of the offence and imposes a penalty that is no less than (and possibly greater than) the penalty offered in the Fixed Penalty Notice.
