52 km/hr over driving on the 401 in January 2019

Long story short, I was driving from Toronto to Ottawa and around Napanee with my friend in two separated cars, the officer was parked on uturn. He followed us turn his light on and got between us and pulled us over, he told me that i was running at 152 km/h without showing me his LISAR. they suspended my and my friends license and impounded the two cars for 7 days. This was a Friday in January 25th I was going me and my friend in the same line.

I went to my initial hearing in Napanee, and they gave me my disclosure(see bellow) and the deal was to drop stunt driving and pay 1500$, I refused the deal and I have a Trial in May 16.

I've spoken to a few paralegals prior to getting my disclosure and they all said the same things along the same lines "Oh, Napanee is bad. We will try to fight it but if we can't, we'll get you a good deal". I was hesitant to pay $1,000 to someone to go in and get the same deal as the prosecutor gave me at the initial hearing. I even asked and they said "This is the best deal we can give, and this is what we would give you if you were represented by a paralegal" I don't know how true that is though.

Anyway, what are my best options here? Should I hire a paralegal or a lawyer and can I win ?

My disclosure : https://docsend.com/view/bp9nex2

Thank you for your time in reading this and any future feedback, comments, suggestions.

Officer isn't required to show you any readings roadside.

Your deal is pretty standard. In term of deals, It's either drop the stunt and charge you according to the speed or they drop the speed down to 49. The higher the speed, the less likely you are to receive much of anything.

If that's what they were willing to offer, I don't know if i'd expect anything better.

Keep in mind speeding 50+ is still a serious offense in terms of insurance. What that means is whether you accept the deal or not, your provider isn't going to treat these differently. You will however save quite a bit on the fine.

Maybe there's an argument that the speed recorded was your friend's, but the officer's notes make it clear that you were both travelling approximately the same speed consistently. If you can get a deal at 49 over, you should consider yourself fortunate, especially given that you had just been convicted of driving 20 over the limit.

If you get a deal at 49 over, you'll be up to 7 demerit points and will receive a warning letter. If you're convicted at 50 over or more, you'll be at 9 points and could face an interview or a licence suspension.

So I have a Trail on May 16, I hired a paralegal to go and fight the ticket for me, but he missed the court date and didn't showed up, So what can I do now and What should I excepect

If you missed your court date, you would have been convicted. You'll have to ask that the trial be reopened. I believe you have something like 15 days to do so.

This could open a whole can of worms with the MTO. You should probably keep tabs on your license and its status. There's a possibility that it could be suspended at any time.

Actually I was convicted and charged to pay 2535$, my paralegal applied for Appeal Without Paying the Fine and a Motion for Extension of Time to Pay Fine, I checked my driving licence status this morning and that was Valid.

Now I don't know if the appeal will be accepted and what can I except.

You don't want an extension of time and you don't want to appeal. You want to have the matter reopened (that's a much easier process). Go to the court as quickly as possible and ask for the form to have the matter reopened. You will have to explain why you want it reopened; just say that your paralegal failed to show up.

You should also contact the paralegal company to find out what happened. If there is no valid reason for the paralegal not to have shown up and if there are any consequences to you, you can file a complaint with the Law Society of Ontario.

I contacted him and that is his answer:

Hi ,

We are filing an appeal because we mis diarized your file and did not address the matter in court on the 16th of May 2019.

Furthermore, I am clear on your instructions and that if we can't get the offence reduced to at least Speeding 149/100 then we will proceed to trial.

However, to file an appeal the fine must be paid OR an application must be filed asking them to waive the paying of the fine pending the appeal.

So, as part of the appeal, we are asking the court to waive the payment of the fine pending the appeal and also asking the Provincial Offences Office to extend the 15 days that was granted to pay the fine to 6 months so you will not incur additional costs and penalties and so that your driver's licence will not be suspended because the fine has to be paid within 15 days from the 16th of May 2019 if we do not file these to documents. This will allow us the time needed to get through the appeal process.

It is unfortunate that this happened, however, we will be filing the appeal so as to get this matter back in a trial court.