KB-2024-001402 - [2025] EWHC 2492 (KB)

The Claimants rely as a secondary case on the legal presumption that the owner of a car is the driver of the car in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Mr Bright contends that, in law, there is a rebuttable presumption that the First Defendant, as the true owner of the VW Passat AF06 ZGT, was the driver of it on the night of the collision and that the burden of proof shifts to the First Defendant to prove that he was not the driver. He relies upon the judgment inBarnardv Sully(1931) 47 TLR 557and the subsequent cases ofEnde v Cassidy [1964] Crim. L.R. 595, [1964] 1 WLUK 5and Elliott v Loake[1982] 1 WLUK 802 [1983] Crim. L.R. 36 [1983] C.L.Y. 634, in whichBarnardwas applied. That principle is not controversial. Mr Vincent accepted on behalf of the Second Defendant that this case law establishes that there is a rebuttable presumption that the owner of a vehicle is its driver.