A mother who struggles to walk and talk due to a stroke has been convicted over an unpaid £16.67 car tax bill.

The 47-year-old from Wolverhampton suffered a brain injury following the stroke in January 2024 and has since experienced seizures, fatigue and memory loss, according to medical records submitted to Birmingham Magistrates' Court.

She faced a prosecution by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) when it spotted that her Honda Civic had not been taxed.

Family members had offered her help, but the court heard she was "overwhelmed" by any paperwork she received and often forgot to pass on important letters to her relatives.

The DVLA sent her a letter in August stating she had not taxed the Honda between April 2025 and March 2026.

The woman ticked "guilty" on the form and an occupational therapist wrote to the courts to say she needed help from relatives and her teenage children to deal with paperwork.

She has "no clear memory" of who was managing her car bills and presumed the Statutory Off Road Notification (Sorn) automatically renewed each year, the OT stated.

During the hearing, 14 pages of records were submitted by her medical team to explain she had been forced to give up driving and had misunderstood the need to annually declare that her car was off road and not being driven.

"[She] is very proud and will not always ask family members to help her," the OT said.

"Due to a combination of her problems with her cognition post stroke, her frequent admissions to hospital with seizures, and her trying to be independent the paperwork regarding her vehicle has been overlooked and therefore Sorn wasn't updated."

After one particularly serious seizure, she struggled to speak, could not walk and was left with a permanent headache, the documents said.

After reviewing the evidence, a magistrate convicted the woman of keeping an unlicensed vehicle.

The case was dealt with through the fast-track Single Justice Procedure, a controversial court system which lets magistrates sit alone in private to decide on criminal cases.

She was given a discharge by magistrate Gary May, leaving her with a conviction as well as a court order to settle the £16.67 unpaid car tax bill, but not facing any additional fine.

Magistrates currently have the option within the Single Justice Procedure to refer cases back to prosecutors, if new information has come to light that could mean a case is no longer in the public interest.

The Magistrates Association, Mayor of London Lord Sadiq Khan and former Lord Chief Justice Baron Thomas of Cwmgiedd are among those to publicly call for reform of the Single Justice Procedure.

The Labour government conducted a consultation on possible changes last spring and has now promised to bring forward reforms "shortly", but has not revealed what those changes might be.

The DVLA told last year's government consultation that it believes prosecutors should automatically see all mitigation submitted by defendants before a case goes before a magistrate.

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