Smart v Allen; Sub Nom. Smart v Allan [1963]

FACTS:

On two days in November, 1961, the Defendant left a Rover motor-car owned by him on a public road. He had bought the car for £2 as scrap and subsequently sold it for 30s. The engine was in a rusty condition, incomplete and did not work.  The tyres were flat and one tyre was missing.  There was no gear-box or electric batteries and the car was incapable of moving under its own power, having been towed from place to place. It could only have been put in running order again by supplying a considerable number of spare parts and effecting considerable repairs, the cost of which would have been out of all proportion to its value. The car was unlicensed and there was no policy of insurance in force in respect of it.

The defendant was charged with keeping on a public road a mechanically propelled vehicle for which a licence was not in force contrary to section 15 (1) of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949 (as amended by s.10 of the Finance Act 1959) and with using a motor vehicle on the road without an insurance policy, contrary to s.201 of the Road Traffic Act 1960.  He contended that, by reason of its condition, the car should not be considered, nor could it be used, as a “mechanically propelled vehicle,” and that, therefore, he did not need to have in force the excise licence.

The justices convicted the defendant of the offences charged.

The Defendant appealed:-

HELD:

Lord Parker CJ held although a motor-vehicle did not cease to be a mechanically propelled vehicle upon the mere removal of the engine, if the evidence admitted of its replacement and the restoration of the motive power, where, as in this case, there was no reasonable prospect of a motor-car ever being made mobile again, the stage had been reached when it had ceased to be a “mechanically propelled vehicle” within the meaning of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949 and the Road Traffic Act 1960. At the time there was no evidence on which the justices, properly directing themselves in law, could have said that the defendant’s car was a mechanically propelled vehicle, the convictions must be quashed.

Gorman J and Salmon J agreed with Lord Parker CJ.  Gorman J took the view that to hold that the vehicle was mechanically propelled would be completely offensive to common sense. 

The appeal was allowed with costs.

Related posts:

1. O’Brien v Anderton [1979]
2. Reader v Bunyard [1987]
3. Winter v DPP [2002]
4. Burns v Currell 1963
5. Director of Public Prosecutions v Saddington [2001]