re "The public are not involved in sentencing, its the Probation Service and the Judge. Revenge doesn't feature in the Criminal Justice System in this country. Punishing, rehabilitation, public protection and victim impact do. " fantasy land im afriad, shame on you as a professional or retired legal bod, i used to believe in british fair play and justice, ive been in too many courts now and seen up close so much obvious injustice i have become much more realistic, the public school self selected bunch who inhabit the judiciary are not at all fair and balanced or providing a good public service, thats just fantasy land
as for the bad driver, well go to eastbourne or similar whith high % of retired drivers out way past the age they should have handed their licences back, and see how bad they routinely drive, go do something about them, they kill more people every year than this one individual, and they routinely get let off with it
etc
|
Do they?! I've never heard of Eastbourne being a hotbed of dangerous killer drivers...
A sweeping generalisation, I feel!
But this guy did kill, didn't he.....
|
|
|
...Killer drivers in Eastbourne getting away with it...
To charge a driver with dangerous driving, or death by dangerous driving where someone is killed, the prosecution have to prove:
'a prolonged period of inattention' and driving 'that falls far short of that of a competent driver'.
The man in this thread ticks both boxes - five miles is prolonged and driving the wrong way along a dual carriageway is 'far short etc '.
Equally, there are cirumstances in which a fatality results when neither of those boxes are ticked - cyclist swerves to miss a drain cover, hit by following car.
Pedestrian knocked over and killed after walking into the path of a reversing car.
In both these cases, the driver was not charged with dangerous driving, but careless, which carries a maximum penalty of a fine.
So both were killer drivers who 'got away with it'.
PS Sorry, retgwte, neither case was in Eastbourne.
|
The guy caused deaths and this is something people get punished for if, as in this case, it is very clearly the result of their own voluntary actions. However he is clearly verging on mentally defective, so what is absolutely essential here is a lifetime driving ban, however much or little bird the unfortunate halfwit has to do.
Abu Izadeen is a moronic, unpleasant loudmouth of a commonplace sort. He is mischievous and also deserves a spanking. But the two offences can't be compared. And justice as always has remarkably little to do with any of it.
Edited by Lud on 20/04/2008 at 15:33
|
Has anyone mentioned the deterrant effect?
I belive that is the purpose of sentences to some extent. Do not forget , every time you set out as a driver, you could take an action that leads you to prison, something that no middle class person ( that inhabits these fora) would ever intentional ream of doing.
So be careful, all the time, especially with drink which is a sure quick way to prision.
Seems a fair deterrant to me, and will keep me looking both ways at juctions etc.
|
Has anyone mentioned the deterrant effect? I belive that is the purpose of sentences to some extent.
I did - it's my Item 1.
You mean there are sane people who quite seriously contemplate driving 5 miles up the M4 in the wrong carriageway, but thankfully are deterred by the prospect of a 4 year prison sentence?
Would 2 years not deter them ? Are there perhaps people whom only a 10 year sentence would deter?
|
anyone who drives like a lunatic and as a consequence kills another person should not get 3 months in jail
they should get life
because they have killed someone due to their actions and as such sholud do life
ask someone who had such a victim in their family
|
|
|
|
life give them life
|
if i ran a company and was negligent and a worker got killed I go to jail
IF I drive my car and am negligent and someone gets killed I too should go to jail for that also
|
You don't seem to be taking any account of the mental ability of this person - isn't there something in law which states that in order to be convicted of a crime, a person has to be aware that it is a crime? Would be interested in PU's opinion.
We don't know all the details of this "crime" - was the driver mentally impaired (judge seems to imply it)? In which case some responsibility lies with those allowing him to have a licence. Also, does putting a mentally impaired person in prison and punishing him for a "crime" he did not know (?) he was committing raises questions about the purpose of prison.
Not trying to stick up for this bloke - just posing questions
|
Phil,
Implied that's all - it suggests that he was of low intellect rather than mentally impaired, there would have been some sort of assessment, probably by the defence and in all likelihood by the Prosecution as well. Too many questions and too few answers in the information as far as the BR Jury is concerned (IMHO)
|
"Too many questions and too few answers in the information as far as the BR Jury is concerned (IMHO)"
Thanks PU - I agree - and that's why I feel that the "string 'em up" attitude is perhaps a little extreme though I can see why people say it. We don't know enough to form a meaningful opinion of the rectitude of the sentence
Edited by PhilW on 21/04/2008 at 23:47
|
I'd certainly want to see more information before I made any judgement, but it would seem likely that there was some kind of intention to cause havoc here - it's not that easy to get onto the wrong side of a motorway (I'm trying to think of how you'd do it without having to take a 270 degree turn), it has to be pretty obvious that you've done it, and to cause a pileup you've got to get into oncoming traffic.
Unless this was at 3am, the chances of unknowingly doing all that and not realising it for presumably at least 4 - 6 minutes is stretching credibility.
Assuming any of that is true, the sentance would have reflected these 'aggravating' factors. It would probably have been assumed he took some or all of these actions on purpose.
Sounds like a fair sentance to me. If he had been a confused 80 year old doing 38mph in a 1983 Fiesta, I doubt he'd have gone down at all.
[edit] Er, maybe not a 270 degree turn. 30 degree? Awkward, anyway.
Edited by sdrio on 25/04/2008 at 02:46
|
Some brainless twit nearly killed me a year or so back doing the same thing on a dual carriageway. I was in the inside lane passing a truck on a long sweeping bend when a car suddenly appeared in front coming towards me.
I had to jump on brake and pull in behind truck to avoid her. She was around 58-60 and this was midday.
I would have been happier if he got 2 years for his brainless act and a lifetime ban.
At least then he will never be in a position to kill anyone else.
|
I thought the sentence was fair. I don't agree it was an 'accident'. He maybe didn't deliberately set out to kill someone or to deliberately drive dangerously, but having ended up on the motorway he doesn't seem to have taken any great steps to get out of the situation. He drove for 5 miles. He has killed one person, put two in wheelchairs. The judge will have had a full background report on his mental state, he gave a 'no comment' interview to the police. He will do half his sentence.
I agree that longer bans are appropriate too - the trouble is that driving bans are often ignored. How would people feel if a driver banned for killing someone, broke the ban and injured someone else?
|
|
im sorry but you cant mistakenly drive the wrong way up a motorway with out realising it especially getting 5 miles without spotting somethings amiss if its in the day time the three lanes of beeping flashing traffic is a dead giveaway and the incredible sharp turning required to get on to the wrong sliproad must have been a hint
|
there are people from rural backgrounds that are frighteningly unworldly, however, even so, they still have a responsibility to their fellow citizens... and the law doesn't allow for their ignorance... and rightly so.
hopefully this publicised case might make others who have limited knowledge of motorways think more carefully...and ensure that another innocent man doesn't lose his life.. and other innocent people don't have substantially life changing injuries for the rest of their days
if of course it is an unworldly outlook that is the cause of this
|
|
What I wonder is whether such a sustained reckless act lies in the domain of criminality or insanity. If the latter, then jail does not seem appropriate and the elimination of the hazard -- lifetime driving ban -- and prolonged remedial psychiatric treatment does seem appropriate.
|
A Crown Court in North Wales also seem to think its the right thing.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7368639.stm
|
Hang on. What are you saying is the right thing?
Jail for a professional driver who twice fiddles with his tacho card and drives for 19 hours or banning for life for the bloke who was as familiar with a motorway as he was with the dark side of the moon?
|
Optimist,
I think what is being said is 'if you drive badly and kill someone you're off to jail' and it matters not if you're unsure of what the moon has on the other side or if your boss is flogging you to death.
it's called taking responsibility for your own actions...and paying the consequences if you get it wrong...
all the hand wringing in the world won't bring people back from the dead, so the only way to deal with that is punishment severe enough to ensure:
A, that person doesn't do it again
B, the severity of the sentence MIGHT cause others willing to risk it, to think again.
What other choice is there? A shrug of the shoulders and an "Oh well, carp happens" "not his fault because he was dim" or "not his fault his boss was pushing him hard".
|
Driving in modern conditions demands a constant, albeit fairly low-level, exercise of intellect. Quite complex decisions sometimes have to be made quite quickly, and sometimes (if for example a driver finds himself going the wrong way down a slip road onto the wrong carriageway of a motorway) a decision already made has to be urgently reviewed.
Unfortunately the official view is that one size fits all and driving is something that can be done as it were by numbers and colour coding, by people without the brains of a woodlouse or the ability to read road signs. The erroneousness of this view is obvious every time one gets into a car.
Only the thought that I myself might fail them prevents me from suggesting a battery of psychological and intelligence tests for all driving-licence candidates.
|
once again Lud you've managed to cause me to chuckle on a subject where there usually isn't any humour
I appreciate it is in theory a difficult subject...but...despite not being an expert, i have serious misgivings about the way the subject matter is currently being addressed.. which in my opinion is that of legislate and lower the standards so that even the simpleton can understand it... the problem with that is it allows everyone else to 'go with the flow', rather than actually THINK.
I'd far rather the average driver actually thought for themselves rather than followed officialdom's dictats... but hey ho, that probably makes me a dissident
|
Westpig
Dissidents are what we need in this country.
I hear what you say about actions and consequences. Death was the result in both of these cases. But one driver was a professional consciously deciding to break the law. The other was hopelessly inexperienced and, as far as I can tell, guilty of a tragic error.
Now that should make a difference when it comes to sentencing.
|
I watched a Matrix movie on the box in the small hours this morning being kept awake by a harmless but painful impending headache.
In what was basically a farrago of special effects, like nothing so much as a game of Grand Theft Auto VII, there was a very long sequence of a woman on a motorbike hurtling the wrong way up a crowded freeway and getting away with it although the collateral wreckage - virtual of course - was extensive.
While no one over the age of five with a normal intellect would have believed the sequence had actually been staged and photographed, I can't help wondering whether this sort of thing, not just the crazed driving but all the bashing and slashing and shooting, might not inspire some excitable but dim individuals to try the same sort of thing 'at home'.
Not that I favour censorship of course, not for me anyway.
Edited by Lud on 29/04/2008 at 17:50
|
Sometimes, when I'm overtaken by someone who appears to have everything in life he needs except a brain, I suggest to Mrs O that the person who's just gone by is regarding the other cars as obstacles in an arcade game: simply there to swerve around as he disappears towards a record-breaking score.
Not, I think, what the welsh bloke was up to but an interesting thought for our younger readers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
