Glad you’re sorted and well done judgejools44 for your superb help
Yeah, I can imagine that job is pretty much following procedures to the letter.
The only offence that can be proved at the time is failure to display. That is no evidence of failure to tax the bike. I cannot believe that you have a right to seize a vehicle for failure to display, when a simple check on your systems should show that the bike is actually taxed, or alternatively a tax disc can be produced.
The other offences (failure to have a valid licence) cannot be proved at the scene - there is no obligation to carry around your licence, merely produce it at a police station within a set period of time (two weeks I believe), and therefore the only ‘offence’ is failure to ensure that your computer system is up to date and complete. Therefore, if the OP is telling the truth, your guys have just seized a bikebased on no evidence whatsoever other than failure to display. Do you really think that is sufficient grounds to seize? I would be interested in knowing the authority for that.
If you have no authority, I would be seriously suggesting that the OP considers a private prosecution for theft.
Oh, and by ‘you’, I mean your employers.
I have a 3 year old tax disc in my holder and I was stopped by the police during a routine check about a year ago and I immediately explained that I don’t display the current one because I had it stolen in the past and the copper told me that it does not matter as they can easily check it over their radio.
I thought about this too, and I, without doing the legal research as I have other things going on, considered that it was not only the failure to display, but also a failure to be able to prove who he was, and therefore prove the bike was his.
This bike was almost certainly seized on the basis of the officer forming the belief that the rider was “otherwise in accordance with their license”.
“belief” is a fairly high burden and it’s for the officer to demonstrate how he formed the belief. There is however no requirement for the officer to spend time at the road side investigating if an offence has actually occurred. Where the rider can demonstrate that the did commit an offence they get their bike back and the ticket given is cancelled.
It should be renumbered that the law has been constructed in this way to make it possible to deal with uninsured and unlicensed drivers… Precisely the sort of people who statistically are much more likely to collide with you or worse still kill you.