P.A. man served with conviction notice, unaware of offence

A frustrated Prince Albert man wonders how he can be convicted for an offence he never knew he committed.

“I received a conviction letter on Oct. 27 and it says in the notice that on Oct. 23 I was found guilty, I had to pay $230, but it doesn’t tell me what I did,” said Wolfgang Manicke, owner of Prince Albert’s Aurora Karate Martial Arts Centre.

The conviction notice he received was connected to a red light camera infraction in March.

“I never received that ticket before, so I could not even go to court to defend myself. Was I in Saskatoon in March? I don’t know, probably,” Manicke said.

City of Saskatoon records show Manicke’s car was caught by a red light camera on 33rd Street and Idylwyld Drive on March 29. Nick Bakker, customer services manager of the city’s transportation division said a ticket was mailed out on Aug. 25. After that, he said Manicke had until Oct. 9 to pay the ticket, or attend a court appearance on Oct. 23.

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But Manicke still has questions.

“I asked the City of Saskatoon if they sent the letter with registered mail, how do you know if I received it?” Manicke said.

Bakker said the city doesn’t require signatures when they mail out tickets because it’s not required by the courts.

“It’s a provincially-run system and the courts deem that the mail out, regular mail, is adequate and deemed to have been made,” Bakker said.

But Manicke urges the City and other municipalities to change how they send out notices of offence.

“I think they should be because down the road they’re going to have more issues with people like me,” he said.

Bakker said despite the offence turning into a guilty conviction, Manicke still has 30 days from the Oct. 23 court date to appeal the court’s decision.

Bakker said a pair of glitches this past summer caused huge backups in processing and mailing out red light camera tickets. With the automated system crashing, City staff had to process the tickets manually. Bakker said as of this week, staff was starting to process offences from the beginning of September. He expects the City will be caught up by the end of the year. The goal, Bakker said, is to have tickets mailed out two to three weeks after the offence.

But when it comes to why Manicke’s ticket was never delivered, he doesn’t have an answer.

“Who knows what could have happened to it and of course it’s in an eight-and-a-half by 11-inch plain brown envelope, maybe it wasn’t recognized but who knows what could have happened to it.

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