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A court has rejected a 60-year-old man's attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.

Leon Humphreys remained adamant yesterday that his right to fight a champion nominated by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) was still valid under European human rights legislation. He said it would have been a "reasonable" way to settle the matter.

Magistrates sitting at Bury St Edmunds on Friday had disagreed and instead of accepting his offer to take on a clerk from Swansea with "samurai swords, Ghurka knives or heavy hammers", fined him £200 with £100 costs.

Humphreys, an unemployed mechanic, was taken to court after refusing to pay the original £25 fixed penalty for failing to notify the DVLA that his Suzuki motorcycle was off the road.

After entering a not guilty plea, he threw down his unconventional challenge. Humphreys, from Bury St Edmunds, said: "I was willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA, but it would have been a fight to the death."

Because the common law of the Thirteen Colonies separated from that of English when the colonies declared independence in 1776, the English common law in effect at that time remained entrenched in United States federal law and in the law of most states, except where the appropriate American authority (e.g., a state or federal legislature or court) had abolished a given rule. Specifically, even if the British legislature or judiciary changed English common law on a given point, that change is not binding on American authorities.

Because Britain did not abolish wager by battle until Parliament's 1819 response to Ashford v Thornton (1818), and because no court in post-independence United States has addressed the issue, the question of whether trial by combat remains a valid American alternative to civil action remains open, at least in theory. In Forgotten Trial Techniques: The Wager of Battle (ABA Journal vol. 71 [May 1985], p. 66), a parody of hard-boiled pulp fiction by authors such as Raymond Chandler, Donald J. Evans set out the possibility of a trial by battle in the setting of a lawyer's office. In Britain, trial by combat was rejected in 2002 by a magistrate, which rejected the accused's claim that it would still be legal under international human rights legislation.

Fozzer wrote:I imagine that the offence must have been for being caught using the bike on the road, rather than just failing to notify the DVLC that his machine was "Off the road" ie; "Not being used on the road"?

Hagar wrote:

Fozzer wrote:I imagine that the offence must have been for being caught using the bike on the road, rather than just failing to notify the DVLC that his machine was "Off the road" ie; "Not being used on the road"?

Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)

Note the date of the article from Webb's link (16 Dec 2002). The penalty is now £80.

Fozzer wrote:

Hagar wrote:

Fozzer wrote:I imagine that the offence must have been for being caught using the bike on the road, rather than just failing to notify the DVLC that his machine was "Off the road" ie; "Not being used on the road"?

Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN)

Note the date of the article from Webb's link (16 Dec 2002). The penalty is now £80.

I suspect that the DVLC may get a little annoyed if you don't Tax your vehicle and declare it "Off Road" when its not being used.... ....
.....but I don't really see that you are committing an offence if the vehicle is parked permanently inside a building (private garage, etc), and not appearing on the public highway, for all to observe...(Police, Traffic Warden, nosey-parker, etc).

They may possibly remind you about it, now and again, but I suspect that's about as far as it goes?

My old 1982 Austin Allegro 1.5 HL has been parked, untaxed, uninsured, in my garage for the past 24 years collecting dust and cobwebs, and I suspect that the DVLC who still have it on their records, like me, have very little interest in it now!... ...!

Paul....refusing to throw things away!.... ...!

Since 1998, keepers of registered vehicles which had been licensed since 1998, but which were not currently using the public roads, have been required to submit an annual Statutory Off-Road Notification (SORN). Failure to submit a SORN is punishable in the same manner as failure to pay duty and display a tax disc when using the vehicle on public roads. It was announced in the 2013 Budget that SORN declarations would become perpetual, thus removing the need for annual renewal after the initial declaration has been made.

It appears that it has bot been banned in the United States.

Bass wrote:What is a fair trail, when schools are not teaching pupils how to read or write correct!?
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