No matter what you are studying or what degree you have, you still need to pass Iife in the UK test. There is no way out.

mr lookforward. Hi there, i need some advice on naturalisation. I went to NCS today who informed me that my naturalisation won't be successful because of the following two traffic offences:

1) TS10 - 23/06/09, 3 points and £60.00 fine fixed penalty
2) SP30 - 13/02/2011, 3 points and £60.00 fine fixed penalty

I did not go to court for either of these offences. The first one was by jumping a red light, i got sent a letter with proff, i admitted my offence and paid up on time and got my papercopy endorsed with the points and it came from the court. The second offence was by a roadside cop with mobile camera for speeding. once again, i did the same as my first offence.

I have no other offences, been on ILR since Aug 2010, passed life in the UK test.

Should I believe NCS or should I go ahead and still apply? I don't want to waste £836!!

Any advice would be much appreciated.

NCS actually told me that I could apply only after 5 years (since the date of my last offence in Feb 2011)!! The lady did make a call to somewhere and check quoting my offence codes and then broke the news to me.

That doesn't sound right to me. I would apply. I think that advice is rubbish. They are only traffic offences! It's not like you've been convicted of some hard crime!

Jenny, this person at the NCS didn't seem to advice me. She said this as a decision. 'you cannot apply, it should be five years from the date of your last offence' was what she said.

Thanku very much fir ur advice though. Ibwould like a few more opinions before I invest so much money.

By the way, I recently had an enhanced CRB for my new job. I had a clear CRB. All sections read 'none recorded'. I also paid money and checked my criminal records online against address relating to te time of my offence, they also came clear.

Now let me clear one confusion that many people have. Having a clear CRB record doesn't at all mean that you do not have conviction or there is no record of convictions. CRB does not and never has recorded details of all the convictions. Only the convictions that are regarded as "recordable" are put on CRB. All traffic convictions are recorded on DVLA computer database as well as HMCS computers, both of which are checked by UKBA.

Jennifer knowles advice is just an ill informed opinion. There is rehabilitation of offenders act 1974 that lays down which and when can a conviction will be regarded as spent.

Now to clearly answer you query can you please let me know a few things. Please mention clearly about both TS10 and SP30.

Did you receive summons from court for either of these offences?
or
When police gave you fixed penalty, did you pay the fine straightaway and sent your license for endorsement and was it the end of the matter?

Please reply accurately, otherwise the whole advice will end up being wrong.

thanks

Thanks for the valuable clarification. Here are the details:

TS10: I had a letter from the police about jumping the red light and if I wanted to declare who the driver was. I declared it was me, accepted the fine and paid upfront, £60. All my letters were from the camera control police. When my paper licence came back with the points, I noted it was posted from the magistrates court but personally I did not have any letters or Simons from the court.

The second offence, I accepted my mistake on the spot with the police who caught me speeding (doing 40 in a 30 zone). I was asked to go to a station of my choice to pay £60 pounds and hand over my paper licence. I did this within stipulated time and my licence came back with 3 points on it for the offence. It reads SP30 fp 3 points. Even in this instance I had no letter or summon from the court.

Hope that clarifies. Please let me know if u need any more info. Thanks in advance for your help.

For your information a work colleague of mine just went through the EXACT same thing with traffic convictions and had no problems whatsover receiving their naturalization after declaring their offences in their application.

Perhaps I should have stated this more "accuratley" in my response, it was pretty slap dash however I ALWAYS follow up on my responses left in forums as I only offer information in order to try and help people with the whole immigration process as it can be quite confusing. If you can't be pleasant and considerate about it DON'T RESPOND! In the future I'll keep my 'ill informed' advice to select forums where the the members actually appriciate it and are polite. Not this one. Best of luck to you all! :.)

Now, for your second offence of sp30, and based on the information you have provided, it is established that it was a Fixed Penalty notice and not a conviction. Fixed penalty notices, generally have no effect on naturalisation. Conviction can happen only in a court of law, but its not necessary that the accused should have been physically to a court room. He could have pleaded by a written statement and then found guilty.

Another general clarification for people who might not know, a Fixed penalty notice given by police eg sp30 with 3 points and £60 fine, is just that a "FIXED PENALTY NOTICE" and not a conviction, and because its not a conviction, it doesn't need to be disclosed anywhere, including any of UKBA forms. If a person get the identical sp30 with 3 points and £60 fine in a magistrates court, then its a conviction and it must be declared. It will take 5 years for this conviction to be "spent". Please note that in both circumstances its sp30 with 3 points and £60 fine, but because only the latter was given in a court of law, it is a conviction. Both of the above situations will have different legal implications.

Your TS10 doesn't make sense to me at all. Why would the license come from a court when police has given a fixed penalty? It would only come from court if the case went to court. Did you ever receive a questionair saying "do you want to plead quilty or not guilty" for your TS10. You say that you paid upfront £60. Who did you pay it to?
If I had seen your papers, it would take no more than 1 second to establish if you had a conviction or not, but because your explanation is not clear, its difficult to say.

Hi Mr Lookforward:

Thanks for your information.

Let me give you more details about my TS10. I first got a 'notice of intention to prosecute' from the police unless i provide details of driver and avail conditional offer of fixed penalty failing which I may get a summons. I immediately wrote back to the police confirming that the driver was me.

Following this, i got another letter from the police (safer roads bureau) 'conditional offer of a fixed penalty notice' the provisions were that i pay 60 pounds to the fixed penalty clerk at the magistrates court within 28 days which will result in 3 points on my without necessity for court proceedings (i am quoting words from the letter). I immediately paid the amount and i did not receive any more letters. I think I was getting confused in my previous mail, i got a receipt for my 60 pounds from the clerk.

I am sure you have given the correct info now, and based on this, you should have no problems with your naturalisation as far as convictions are concerned, because you have no convictions whatsoever. So in the form where it asks whether you have any convictions, you can simply answer "NO" and move on. Once again, FIXED PENALTY NOTICE is not a conviction.
And yes, I haven't made this up. Above info is clearly mentioned in UKBA guidance. I have just used a simple laymans language to clarify it all.

Many of the staff at NCS have hardly any knowledge. They are only competent to deal with totally straightforward and black and white applications. The NCS staff who dealt with you regarded your points on license as convictions. Points on license, and convictions are different things. One person may have 8 or 12 or any number of points, but no conviction on his record. Another person may only have 3 points but have a conviction to his record.

Hope this helps

regards

mr lookforward: Thank you very much for your systematic and clear explanations. I am now very much assured of going forward with my application. I think I will send it by post directly. I can't thank you enough for taking time to respond to my queries and being so prompt. I hope to get back here in a few months time to update the result of my application.

Thank you very much once again!

Its me again :)

Because I am on ILR my wife got her spouse visa. If I now get my naturalisation, can she continue on the same visa or does she need to apply afresh?

She doesn't need to apply afresh. The visa was given to her because she was spouse of a "person present and settled in UK". British Citizens and someone having ILR are both "person present and settled in UK".

You haven't asked, but I will clarify things which will spring up in your mind later on about your wife. So can you please tell me on which date she entered UK on spouse visa?

regards

Dear Mr. Lookforward,

I applied thro a NCS in London in late Oct and have now got my citizenship. Can't reiterate how valuable your help was. Thank you very much once again.

My wife enetered the uk in Aug 2009. We will be applying for her ILR in Aug this year and citizenship a year later.

Dear Mr Lookforward,

As a thank you for your help and advice, I would like to send a small token of our appreciation. Would you mind sending me you contact address to: raj26may@yahoo.com

Thank you,

Raj

Hi,

Glad to know you got naturalisation.

Also let me tell you something about your wife. She does not need to wait one year after ILR to apply for naturalisation. You had to wait one year after ILR, but she won't have to because she would be applying for naturalisation as "spouse of british citizen".

Apart from other standard requirements, which I am sure you will be aware of, her basic residential requirements will be, that on the date of application she should be:

Resident in UK for 3 years

Have ILR on the date of application (not one year after ILR, because as spouse of british citizen she just needs to have ILR on the date of application).

So bascially, once she applies for ILR in Aug 2012 (as spouse of person present and settled in UK on form SET M) and gets ILR, she can apply for naturalisation straight away if she so wishes.

You asked me for my address. I am flattered. But I hope you will understand that I won't be able to provide my address. You mentioned, and that is a big thing. Wish you and your family good luck.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

I completely understand about not bein able share your address.

It's rare in this world to find people like you who take time to genuinely help. Hats off to you and wish you every blessing in life.

Thank you for the advice about my wife. It's much appreciated.

best wishes

Raj

Hi Mr.Look Forward

Please can you help me with my Citizenship application. I have got 2 Speeding tickets on the same day ( one in the morning and one in the evening) on 09/02/2014 and I have accepted both with in the time limits that I was driving the vehicle. So they have given me an option to attend Speed awareness course which I have used for one speeding ticket and 3 points on another speeding ticket. I have attended speed awareness course on first ticket within stipulated time and paid £100 on the second speeding ticket within the time limit allowed and got endorsements on my DVLA counterpart. I did not challenge in both cases ,However surprisingly they have no where mentioned that as Fixed Penalty on DVLA Counterpart and shown as issued by "2775: Northern Oxfordshire Magistrates' Court" when I have checked endorsement details online. 

When I went to NCS, they have mentioned that Counterpart did not have worded as Fixed Penalty and hence you have to wait until those parts are spent. 

Details on Counter part are as follows:

Convicting Court Code - 2775

Offence Code - SP30

Date of Offence - 09/02/2014

Penalty Points - 03

Online is showing as follows.

• 
  

  Offence dates

  
  
  
  
  • Offence date: 9 Feb 2014
  
  
  • Expiry date: 9 Feb 2017
  
  
  • Removal date: 9 Feb 2018
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  Offence details

  
  
  
  
  • SP30: Exceeding statutory speed limit on a public road
  
  
  • Penalty points: 3
  
  
  
  


• 
  

  Court/Fixed penalty office

  
  

  2775: Northern Oxfordshire Magistrates' Court

  
  

Please could you help me with this if i need to declare in the form at all or just ignore?

Thanks

DG 

 

 

My mum recently applied for us to get naturalization ( my mum, I and my 2 siblings). Their application was successful, but mine wasn't, because they said since am 19 I have to apply when am 5 years in the country, which is december this year. My question is that do i have to do the life in the UK test as I am in a university doing a degree course, because i wasted a lot of money the first time i applied and i don't want the same thing to happen again. Thank you.