Hit-and-run driver who killed cyclist jailed for 12 months

chrisonatrike wrote:

There's a perfect storm of problems here - law, attitudes etc. The biggest one is that fixing any of the detection / arrest / charging / conviction and sentencing issues will not bring back one life.

I doubt resolving any of those problems will make much of difference to casualty figures either.  Not unless we "bang 'em up for life", we get serious about longer driving bans and properly enforcing them and we have a huge increase in enforcement of "minor infractions" on the roads. Because those who just don't care still won't.  Those who were too casual / distracted / tired didn't plan to go out and kill either. They surely behaved this way before without major consequences.  And everyone still thinks they're a better than average driver.

That's why I bang on about removing the hazard.

The only way that the motons of this world will actually drive safer is by having the passive threat of an outright lifetime ban from driving. I truly believe that it is an answer to most of the UK's dangerous driving. Having a licence to be in control of a ton of motorised vehicle on Britains road system should be a privilege not a right. Lifetime bans on serious driving incidents should be the laws starting point.

peted76 wrote:

The only way that the motons of this world will actually drive safer is by having the passive threat of an outright lifetime ban from driving. I truly believe that it is an answer to most of the UK's dangerous driving. Having a licence to be in control of a ton of motorised vehicle on Britains road system should be a privilege not a right. Lifetime bans on serious driving incidents should be the laws starting point.

I believe most people have little awareness of the legal consequences of bad driving. Not surprising as there are limited legal consequences. We should definitely fix that - not just as a punishment / deterrent but because we shouldn't allow people to continue do things they've proved unsafe at. Depending on any changes in law that might indeed be the quickest action for addressing road safety.

I just don't buy the "deterrence will fix it" aspect. I think that those with bad intentions don't really care (in that moment) and those who were more "thoughtless" still won't pay more attention. And the evidence of people crashing into inanimate objects on a daily basis and ruining their own days - and occasionally lives - suggests that people will always make mistakes and the vehicle is a powerful magnifier of the consequences.

I think it's both "remove the incompetents" and "design our streets and vehicles better" to lessen both the chance of mistakes and the consequences of those mistakes. We do this in some places (motorway design springs to mind) but just give up most others because of a "the car must get through / park everywhere" mindset.

Velo-drone wrote:

Let's be clear - this sentence is at the upper end of what you are likely to see for such an incident.  If the deceased were not daughter of an MP, it's highly doubtful that we'd be seeing a prison sentence at all.

In very similar cases it is not unusual for the driver to in fact get off scot free on the basis of the "sun in my eyes" defence

https://road.cc/content/news/142213-driver-blinded-sun-found-not-guilty-...

I'd like to think it's something like 12 month ban for death by careless (not because it should be but because thats quite typical) and 12 months prison for the failing to stop.

Hmm, I haven't looked at the breakdown of the sentencing in this case, but I'd be surprised if that was how it was. 

Partly because failing to stop is generally considered as a fairly minor offence - it isn't in itself what causes the harm - and in this particular case there would be mitigation in that she did return to the scene, albeit she left again - and she did contact the police and effectively hand herself in. 

I'm personally unconvinced that harsher sentences for "failing to stop" are going to be helpful.  In these circumstances, people are panicked and don't make rational decisions.  If they take actions to conceal their involvement, then there are already quite severe penalties for perverting the course of justice (up to lifetime imprisonment). 

If they take actions to conceal their involvement, then there are already quite severe penalties for perverting the course of justice (up to lifetime imprisonment). 

You might want to alert the courts of that. The last three people who tried altering evidence of their involvements that were recently reported barely got anything extra added to the sentence. 

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

If they take actions to conceal their involvement, then there are already quite severe penalties for perverting the course of justice (up to lifetime imprisonment). 

You might want to alert the courts of that. The last three people who tried altering evidence of their involvements that were recently reported barely got anything extra added to the sentence. 

Don't know the law but I suspect that people are expected to dissemble / hide evidence of their crime and that is normally wrapped up in the "main charge" - so the "peverting" only gets applied for others' actions or for things like witness intimidation, jury tampering and taking advantage of the corruptability of the police?

CPS guidance specifically includes within its examples of 'serious harm' for the purpose of establishing a perverting the course of justice, conduct which:

- "avoids a police investigation for disqualified driving or other serious offences;
- "avoids a mandatory penalty such as disqualification"
- "results in the police losing the opportunity to obtain important evidence in a case."

Of course there isn't going to be a life sentence on the cards in relation to perverting the course of justice over most driving offences, that is obviously going to be for the extremes e.g. extended activity to cover up a murder, or attempts to bribe or threaten judges etc.

But the means is there to prosecute, this type of scenario is specifically including in the charging guidelines, and it is certainly possible to give a severe penalty - albeit I haven't actually looked at the sentencing guidelines which would be where you would find out what someone would actually get for this kind of thing.  

The issue is that police and CPS will generally go with the charge(s) that are going to be easiest to prove, and will often leave "minor" offences on file if they think there's a good chance of securing prosecution on a more serious charge. 

joe9090 wrote:

20 euro pounds says she was on instagram or some crap on her phone at the time of the collsion, and somehow she managed to hide that evidence.

It says in the Liverpool Echo that the culprit had been "up arguing with her boyfriend until 2:30 am". Given that the offence was committed at 8:30 am I suspect a strong possibility that she was worried, or knew, that she would fail a breathalyser if she stopped. That's why I think, as stated below, we should have the US law that failing to stop at the scene of an incident is counted as being a refusal to take a breath test and therefore punished as if a test had been taken and failed.

Petition is waiting for a debate - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/575620

Already had an extremely bland response from the Department for Transport so it's not looking good.

I'm almost certain this won't bring in anything like "if they ran away they likely had one or other specific thing to hide". Happy to be corrected by any lawyers but I think our system is really unwilling to go down that direction.

You're probably right, which is wrong, if you see what I mean. I think I've mentioned this story on here before, my cousin was knocked down on a zebra crossing in the Kings Road, an incident which put him in a coma for three months and the effects of which he is still coping with 20 years later. The driver, who lived nearby, drove off but soon returned, turning himself into police on the spot and apologising, saying he had panicked and knew he was in the wrong. When the police breathalysed him he was well over the limit, but he claimed that he had been so shocked he had gone home and whacked back several large whiskeys to calm himself down before returning. With no proof that he had actually been drunk driving, he was charged with careless driving and fined £625 and (if I recall correctly) six points. My cousin got very substantial compensation but the bastard (the driver, not my cousin, obviously) should have gone to prison and would have done under US law.

Rendel Harris wrote:

When the police breathalysed him he was well over the limit, but he claimed that he had been so shocked he had gone home and whacked back several large whiskeys to calm himself down before returning. With no proof that he had actually been drunk driving, he was charged with careless driving and fined £625 and (if I recall correctly) six points.

That's an awful story and awful justice. Was about to say that the prosecution had something to answer for but then recalled the "but can you actually prove I drove my car onto the pavement?" defense which apparently works too.

Cousin was pretty peeved with the prosecution, they pretty much said "this is the best we'll get so we're not going to push for more" and ignored his wishes about matters.

chrisonatrike wrote:

Petition is waiting for a debate - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/575620

Already had an extremely bland response from the Department for Transport so it's not looking good.

I'm almost certain this won't bring in anything like "if they ran away they likely had one or other specific thing to hide". Happy to be corrected by any lawyers but I think our system is really unwilling to go down that direction.

the argument for harsh penalties for hit and run is not that you should assume the worst about what they are hiding. But that the failure to stop delays medical aid increasing risk of death and also leaves the victim in avulnerable position in the road with risk of secondary impacts.

So the failure to stop is a deliberate choice which increases risk of death for the other person. Unlike the original collision whic society is prepared to accept as an accident. (Although we know it is the likely result of bad driving)

I sat in on a case where the driver had plead guilty to failing to stop, however careless driving failed because no-one saw him on his phone (he probably was we just didn't see it). In this case the Police were at his house in minutes and had breathalysed him etc.

The Magistrates gave him the maximum penalty points as his own evidence was that he saw three people on the ground in his mirrors and kept going.

Smug little git he was too, turned up in jeans and slouched the whole way through the trial.

wycombewheeler wrote:

Both of these significantly increase the risk of death to the victim, and purely down to the reaction of the driver. Failing to stop after inuring someone should carry penalties at least as high as death by careless driving. 

In a number of states in the US failing to stop after an accident is counted, in addition to any other offence, as having refused a drink/drug test, the penalty for which is exactly the same as failing a drink/drug test. That would seem quite a good way of increasing both the deterrent value and the punishment apportioned for the offence.

I can't see where it mentions Ashton's employment history.

It's in the Echo

Well, yeah but she wasn't being paid to care for them, was she?

From what I understand, most care workers aren't really paid to care for anybody.

To be fair to the Echo (through heavily gritted teeth) the mitigation BS about the sun and her inattention and panic is all stuff that he lawyer said during the trial.