this is a new one to me.

After reading the MPs earning more than 100K thread, I looked up Soames, who used to be our MP, when I was a kid... He was twice fined for road offenses, once for speeding and once for riding a quad on the road without insurance.

In both cases, he was fined and had to pay court costs, plus a "victim surcharge" of 15UKP. In both instances, there was no accident and no other parties involved, therefore no victim as such, so what is the victim surcharge?

Edit: According to judiciary.gov.co.uk it is a surcharge for all sentence where a fine or suspended sentence or custodial sentence is handed down. This seems to apply to all charges, regardless of whether there was a victim?

http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov. ... charge.htm

I think there's a government/police fund that pays compensation to victims of crime although I'm not entirely sure under what circumsatnces it pays out.
Presumably the surcharge is where this fund gets its money from.