A teenager has been handed a criminal conviction over £1.67 of unpaid car tax on a surprise birthday gift, for an offence committed before she had even received the vehicle.

The 18-year-old was prosecuted by the DVLA over the bill on her new Toyota, in the latest case of harsh justice to emerge from the Single Justice Procedure.

In a letter to the court, she explained the car was bought as a surprise 18th birthday gift from her parents, and she was entirely unaware of it when it was untaxed for a few weeks in April and early May.

She set out how her parents were waiting to see if she passed her driving test before paying the annual £20 road tax fee.

“As I was not the driver at the time of the offence and not aware that I owned the vehicle, I kindly ask that you review this offence”, the teenager wrote in her letter.

But despite the circumstances, magistrate Francine Beckett, sitting in Burnley, decided to impose a criminal conviction on the teen.

She received a six-month conditional discharge from the court, and was also ordered to settle the £1.67 bill.

It was nearly two years ago that The Standard first exposed deep flaws in the Single Justice Procedure, a fast-track courts system which sits behind closed doors.

Prosecutors like the DVLA do not routinely see mitigation letters, so miss the chance to withdraw cases which turn out not to be in the public interest.

Data also shows that magistrates rarely refer cases back to prosecutors for a public interest check – even when there is compelling and often heartbreaking information in the mitigation letter – contributing to the system being nicknamed “conveyor belt justice”.

The teenager, from Porth in South Wales, was prosecuted for keeping a vehicle without a valid vehicle licence.

She submitted an online guilty plea, but then went on to explain: “I was unknowingly the owner of the vehicle in question.”

Read More: Teenager gets criminal conviction over £1.67 bill on surprise birthday gift, in new fast-track court scandal