A woman says her life has been put on hold after she was fined £1,000 and summoned to court for motoring offences she did not commit. Sarmite Reinholde, 33, from Church Village in Rhondda Cynon Taf, had given her Audi A5 back to a finance company in October 2018 having used it for a year, but years later realised the authorities still believed she was the driver of the vehicle, and were sending growing fines to her old address in Barry which she'd been oblivious to.
Four years after giving the car back to the finance company the mother-of-one has clocked up more than a grand in fines which should never have been directed to her, has had to defend herself in court, and has been unable to remove a county court judgement on her name and six points from her licence. Things got so bad for Sarmite that she was even told she could lose her job in insurance over the allegations.
“The first I heard of it was in July last year when I received a message from Preston Magistrates Court telling me I had the fine and six points on my licence and that my case had already been heard in court,” Sarmite told WalesOnline, remembering the day the courts finally reached her at her address in Church Village in July 2021.
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“As the case was in Lancashire to be honest I thought it was a mistake. There was no explanation or context to it, but I was told if I didn’t pay the bailiffs would be at my door. It was not a nicely worded letter at all and was very threatening.
“I’d had the car for work from October 2017 to October 2018 and then circumstances meant I had to give it back to the company, which I did.”
After Sarmite found herself in court on July 9 this year following a year-long battle to get the case looked at again, the DVLA has extended its sympathies to Sarmite, but has said it is not to blame for the situation Sarmite found herself in. The agency said drivers of vehicles on finance should notify the DVLA themselves when they are no longer the keeper of the vehicle, rather than assuming the company will do so.
Sarmite denies she is at fault for failing to carry out proper administrative work after transferring the car back to the company, and says she did notify the DVLA appropriately and the whole debacle has been unfair and damaging to her life. She pointed out that a staff member for the DVLA reassured her in an email in October 2020 that any fines after she handed the car back she would not be liable for.
Letters from the DVLA show that Sarmite did ensure the DVLA was notified she was no longer the driver of the vehicle in October 2020 - two years after she’d last driven the car. An email from a representative of the DVLA to Sarmite in October 2020 suggests she had done enough at that point to be immune to any offences which occurred from October 2018.
The email reads: “You were originally removed from our record as the current keeper when a new keeper updated via a V5C logbook on October 19, 2019. So this was recorded as your disposal date. You are now shown on our system as not having the vehicle from November 22, 2018, and any fines that happened after that date you are not liable for.”
Sarmite says this proves the DVLA was aware of the situation and she shouldn’t have been embroiled in the case. But a representative of the DVLA also sent her a letter in October 2020 which suggests the email she’d received from them may have given her false hope.
“Any statutory notice for an offence that took place after you sold the vehicle should be returned to the issuing authority giving what details you can about the sale of the vehicle,” the letter reads. “Only the issuing authority is in a position to make a decision based on the evidence you provide.”
“I want to do this to help others,” Sarmite continued. “I know I am not the only person this has happened to.”
Sarmite said after she received the letter in July 2021 that her world turned upside down. “It was ten to 15 calls every day from one agency to another trying to get answers to what had happened,” she continued.
“Eventually when I realised it was offences that had taken place in Blackburn we managed to get the case reopened. It was a couple of months between the court summons and when I finally found out what had happened.”
Sarmite's case was held in July via video link as she sat in disbelief at what was happening to her. “It was a horrific feeling,” Sarmite recalled. “The judges introduced the case to me and read the offences. The prosecution opened the case and then closed it straightaway, but the CCJ and the six points are still on my name.
“I have never been in court and have never had points on my licence before. It has had a huge effect on my life. It has stopped me from using credit or making any large payments. I can’t even get a phone contract.”
Sarmite says after everything she has been through this still isn’t the end of her nightmare. She says she has been told by her lawyer that she will most likely need to return to court again to try to get the CCJ removed from her name, and might have to pay to have it removed.
Sarmite described the last year as “really stressful and just horrendous”. “I’ve constantly been afraid that another fine will come through the door every time I hear the letterbox go. I’ve got a fear that it could happen again. I’m a single, working mother and my life isn’t easy as it is without all this going on too.”
A DVLA spokeswoman said: “It is the registered keeper’s responsibility to notify the DVLA when they sell their vehicle. The quickest way to tell the DVLA if you’ve bought, sold or transferred a vehicle or to change an address is online. Our online services are easy to use and we urge all customers to use these where possible.”
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