The law is an ass, yet again

[0iD]

Lorry driver fined £500 over fatal crash.

Andrew Theobold admitted that he was driving without due care and attention when he hit moped rider Kirstie Seaman.

Judge David Cooper heard that losing his licence would leave Theobold unable to work.

Instead, he fined him £500 and ordered him to pay £350 in costs with a £15 victim surcharge.

In addition he was given six penalty points on his driving licence.

So he'd lose his licence? Who cares... really?

[Jay]

£15 victim surcharge? What is that?

[Lucio]

£15 victim surcharge? What is that?

It goes towards paying compensation for victims and families of victims of crime (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6431401.stm)

[Jay]

wow all of £15 -tax -admin costs = -£350.95

[Splash]

Kinda flies in the face of the CPS guidance... Still - anything to keep the unemployed stats low, eh?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The driver was banned from driving for 18 months according to the article.

[KidChameleon]

It would appear that Andrew Theobold did not cause the accident, hence the seemingly low punishment. The article also said it was thought Seaman was dead before Theobold hit her. The driver who actually caused the accident was given a 34-week prison sentence suspended for 18 months and was also banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to do 140 hours unpaid work in the community and to pay £100 prosecution costs.

The suitability of that punishment depends entirely on the circumstances of the accident. Did he put his foot down and deliberately ram her? Did she pull out from a side road and get hit because he wasn't paying attention in that split second? The article just says there was a collision.

[[GSV]Trig]

Yeah, we'll never know the whole truth, thread should be renamed media is an ass and fails to report all the facts causing people to suggest the law is an ass...

[Saracen]

Kinda flies in the face of the CPS guidance... Still - anything to keep the unemployed stats low, eh?

Not really. That link goes to causing death by dangerous driving, which is a very different situation from due care and attention which, according to the experts in court, resulted in hitting someone already dead.

Consider the last line of the first section of that CPS guidance .... culpability must be the determining factor. What is this bloke culpable for? Because, according to that article, it isn't causing any injury, let alone death. If the victim had, according to experts, still been alive when hit by him, it'd be somewhat different. But, apparently, she wasn't.

But that brings me to an old adage ..... there, but for the Grace of God, for I. Show me a driver that's been driving for more than a brief period and claims never to have had a moment of inadequate attention and I'll show you either a liar or a saint. But, the vast majority of the time, such moments go unnoticed because nothing happens.

So what did this bloke actually do? Let his attention wander for a moment and get caught up in an incident he didn't cause? And we should be giving him a jail sentence or taking away his method of earning his keep (and maybe feeding a family) because of it?

The punishment should fit the offence, and that includes both the results of the offending action, and that the impact of the sentence is somewhat in balance with the severity of the offence which, it seems, was "due care and attention".

Two things strike me. First, it's a tragic loss but this bloke didn't (reportedly) cause the death. Second, that newspaper headline, while technically accurate, is certainly misleading since it leads one to conclude he did kill her and got a fine. That, it seems, is very far from the case but only a much more careful reading brings out what actually (reportedly) happened.

To refer back to the thread title, I'm not convinced the law was an ass in this case, though the media was.