Drink Driving Solicitors in London

Are you facing drink driving charges in London?

We are often asked who are the best drink-driving solicitors in London. M.A.J Law is made up of a team of specialist drink drive solicitors that can help save your licence. We defend all motoring charges with expertise, dedication, and a personalised approach, ensuring the best possible outcome for your case, whether it involves drink driving, speeding, dangerous driving, or any other motoring offence.

Not only will we defend your drink driving, dangerous driving, or drug driving offence, but we will support you throughout your case, making sure you have the guidance you need at all times.

Your first court appearance at a London Magistrates' Court will undoubtedly cause you considerable stress and anxiety, but please try not to worry. Our team of drink-driving experts will be happy to discuss your options with you. Remember that you can still win a drink driving case even if you're over the legal limit.

The earlier you get advice, the more options you’ll have. Evidence gets served late, devices get taken out of service, witnesses forget exactly what they saw. But if you’ve entered an early plea without advice, lots of options are taken away.

Call 0151 422 8020 before you speak to the CPS or court and know where you stand in your case before committing to anything.

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Drink Driving Offences

Drink driving any kind of motor vehicle over the legal limit means you could be faced with a charge, especially if combined with dangerous or careless driving.

The drink driving offences set out in the Road Traffic Act 1988 include:

• Driving or attempting to drive while over the legal limit
• Being in charge of a vehicle when intoxicated (even if not driving)
• Failing to provide a specimen (in the form of blood, breath, or urine)
• Causing death by careless driving while under the influence
• Drug driving in combination with alcohol

What Is The Drink Driving Limit?

The drink driving limit is a unit measurement taken from a sample of your breath, blood or urine. In England and Wales the prescribed limits are:

• 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath
• 80 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood
• 107 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine

How much you need to drink to reach those limits depends on your weight, your metabolism, what you’ve eaten and long ago you stopped drinking, which is why two people can drink the same amount and produce different readings.

But being over the limit doesn’t guarantee a conviction, and the reading has to be reliable and taken using the prescribed procedure.

What Happens If You're Convicted Of Drink Driving?

Drink driving offences carry a mandatory driving disqualification. The length of the driving ban is determined by factors such as your breath reading, previous convictions, and any aggravating circumstances. You can use our penalty calculator to work out the length of your ban. You can also look at the Magistrates' Court Sentencing Guidelines.

We would also recommend reading our Drink Driving Hardship page and Drink Driving Special Reasons.

With a criminal offence, the expertise of specialist drink and dangerous driving solicitors is vital. If you have been charged with drink driving, our team can help assess documentation and complete a thorough review of the evidence against you, including police procedures, breathalyser results, and any mitigating circumstances, to build a strong defence or seek the best possible outcome for your case.

How Do You Defend A Drink Driving Charge?

Having a reading over the limit can drive most people to blindly enter a guilty plea. But you shouldn’t. There is lots of opportunity to challenge procedures and evidence in most London drink drive cases that could result in you avoiding conviction.

Was the breath test procedure properly followed?

Police have to follow a strict statutory procedure when taking a breath test, which includes warnings, options and devices. Any one of these can be challenged and if things weren’t done to the letter, you have a case.

Should you have been offered a blood or urine sample?

If your breath test falls within a particular range or the machine can’t get an accurate reading (for whatever reason), you should be offered to give an alternative specimen. This is done wrong by officers more than you’d think.

Was there a reason you couldn’t give a sample?

Failing to provide is a separate offence to drunk driving, but many people face it when they were medically unable to give a sample and panicked, or didn’t understand what they were being asked and have accidentally refused. If you had a reasonable excuse not to provide a sample you’ve got a good case.

Did you drink after you’d stopped driving?

This is sometimes called the hip flask defence. If you drank after driving but before a test, your reading at the station will be different to your one at the wheel. But this does take expert evidence and a back calculation to work out results, but it does work where the evidence supports it.

London Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

You may know by now that we regularly win drink driving cases in London. Many of our cases are won due to administrative errors and miscommunication within the CPS. Take a look at the example below from a case at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

In this case, the CPS blamed an 'administrative error' for not serving crucial evidence in a client's case! Suffice to say the court didn't accept the apology and excluded the evidence. Costs were also awarded.

These mistakes are becoming increasingly common in London (most likely due to the unmanageable workload). It's no secret that London CPS are one of the busiest in the country. Drink driving cases will always be low priority when compared to other common offences like knife crime and terrorism. This can lead to silly mistakes being made in regard to the drink driving law, and long delays in serving evidence. This has contributed to our unbeatable track record in defending drink and drug driving cases.

What Are Special Reasons?

Special reasons are what you can give to court to avoid a ban (or reduce it) after a conviction. They’re not - as some people wrongly think - defences against drunk driving.

And the bar on these is high, so you’ll need good evidence.

Reasons we’ve seen work in the past include a spiked drink, a genuine emergency (with no realistic alternative other than to drive) and only driving a very short distance.

Don’t get special reasons confused with exceptional hardship, which applies to a totting-up can, not a drink driving disqualification.

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What Happens At Your First London Court Hearing?

Please try not to worry about your drink driving court hearing. Our team of barristers and drink or drug driving solicitors are focused on achieving the best outcome for you. We are currently the highest-rated motoring defence firm in the UK. We would usually start by discussing your case over the phone (or in person if you're local). Simply call and ask to speak to a solicitor. Our initial advice is free of charge and comes with no obligation. Once we've gained an understanding of your case, we can tell you whether you have a defence to the allegation (or a special reason). Remember that a defence could be technical or procedural (you may not realise it's a defence until we tell you). If we advise you to plead guilty, we can explain how to minimise the sentence imposed by the court. This sometimes involves negotiating lower charges with the CPS. 

To learn more about drink driving defences, please see our case studies. 

M.A.J Law has specialised in motoring offences for 10 years. Our team have over 50 years combined experience defending drink driving cases in and around London, so we know what to expect.

Magistrates' Courts in London

We have first hand experience of representing clients charged with serious motoring offences in all London Magistrates' Courts, including;

• Westminster Magistrates' Court
• Staines Magistrates' Court
• Wimbledon Magistrates' Court
• Barkingside Magistrates' Court
• Sevenoaks Magistrates' Court
• Uxbridge Magistrates' Court
• Thames Magistrates' Court
• Willesden Magistrates' Court
• Bexley Magistrates' Court
• Bromley Magistrates' Court
• Croydon Magistrates' Court
• City of London Magistrates' Court
• Luton Magistrates' Court

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Who are M.A.J Law?

M.A.J Law houses a team of driving defence lawyers. We represent clients charged with all motoring offences including drink driving, drug driving, failing to provide and speeding. Many of our cases are won on technical points of law and procedure. 

You will no doubt be extremely worried about your first court hearing. Our drink driving team would be pleased to discuss your options in detail. We can also confirm our fixed fee pricing structure with you.

London Court contact details;

Court and Tribunal Service - Find a court

Once you locate the correct Magistrates' Court you will find telephone numbers and email addresses. 

The map below contains all London Magistrates' Courts:

 

Thinking of pleading guilty?

The following resources may help you make a decision.