Province asks drivers to provide ticket info after losing it

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This article was published 17/04/2018 (2871 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Justice is banking on the co-operation of people ticketed and fined after technical glitches led to the loss of court documents regarding the disposition of cases.

On March 19, Peter Townsend, 19, went to provincial court to deal with three tickets issued to him by Winnipeg Police Service. In exchange for two tickets being thrown out (he declined to say what they were for) and a reduced fine on the third, Townsend pleaded guilty to speeding.

He left court that day thinking the matter was dealt with, other than the $600 speeding fine hanging over his head that had to be paid within six months. But Monday, Townsend opened his mail to find a letter from the province informing him the record of his disposition outcome had been lost.

“Unfortunately our systems had went down and this information was lost on our system. For this information to be properly documented on our system we are requesting that you send us a copy of your fine and due date document,” the letter reads.

“If you could either scan your document and email it to us or fax us the document that would allow us to enter it back into our system properly.”

Townsend says he doesn’t think it’s his job to provide the province with that paperwork they lost. In addition, a month down the line, he says he no longer has a copy of the documents.

“I don’t want to have to deal with this again. This isn’t my fault. I’m not (the province’s information technology) department, working on their computers. That’s their job,” Townsend said.

“I thought I was done with this. I thought I was only going to have to pay the $600… Now I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

He said he has yet to reach out to the province about the issue and isn’t sure what will happen if he can’t find his paperwork.

A Manitoba Justice spokeswoman said Tuesday that the issue affected 13 people and resulted from court servers being “unexpectedly offline” at the end of March.

Manitoba Justice released a statement at the time announcing the computer woes, indicating the technical difficulties had caused delays throughout the week. No explanation on what caused the issue was provided at the end of March or on Tuesday

While the servers were down, staff manually captured information on disposition outcomes, but some of that data wasn’t properly uploaded once the servers were back online, the spokeswoman said.

“The tickets were filed with the court and a conviction was entered, but without the disposition information it could have been subject to additional court action and sent to collections through no fault of the person who had received the ticket,” the spokeswoman said.

The 13 people affected were then sent letters, the spokeswoman said, adding seven had so far complied with the province’s request to send paperwork in. The remaining six — including Townsend — have yet to respond.

Scott Newman, a Winnipeg-based defence attorney, said unless the original ticket – which would serve as the charging document – was lost, the court would be within its legal rights to recreate the disposition documents.

If the individuals ticketed are unable, or decline, to provide their paperwork, the court should be able to recreate the documents from audio recordings or crown attorney notes, he said.

Newman also said if the issue isn’t widespread and only a handful of disposition documents were lost, the province did the right thing by contacting those affected directly to let them know what happened.

“I would advise those affected to make sure they understand what the position is and understand the facts of where they are. If there are serious potential consequences for them, be it loss of license or some other sanction, in these unique circumstances they may want to consider consulting a lawyer,” he said.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

@rk_thorpe