On 27 January 2014, Members of Parliament debated driving offences and penalties.
You can read the contributions for yourself by following the link at the bottom of this article. The debate took place against the background of the Sentencing Council's current consultation on guidelines for sentencing motoring offences, and was an acknowledged effort to influence that process.
The contributions were frequently illustrated with vivid descriptions of the devastation to families caused by death on the roads - and the often uncomprehending response of the grief-stricken to what they perceived to be overly lenient sentences for crimes they see as akin to murder. It can't be an easy job, as an M.P., to have to face at your constituency surgery, the distraught family of a son and daughter-in-law, killed by a speeding motorist who'd already clocked up ELEVEN driving bans, when his uninsured car, with the police in hot pursuit, swerved out of control across the road and instantly killed them. The temptation to download it all on the floor of the commons is clearly one that some members are not equipped to resist.
The views of those who have lost someone close to them in circumstances such as those, deserve understanding and respect for the genuine tragedy that underlies them. But the "hanging's too good for them" (yes, I exaggerate just a tad there) response of most contributors to the debate was in my view a cheap, populist response to a serious and complicated issue. There were shrill demands for manslaughter prosecutions, life sentences, and lifetime driving bans and a clear desire for tougher penalties for all offences causing death or injury.
The law already provides for a maximum penalty of fourteen years' custody for causing death by dangerous driving, whilst the maximum sentence for manslaughter is imprisonment for life, with the actual sentence in the hands of the Judge. M.P.s who called for manslaughter prosecutions may have forgotten that "causing death by dangerous driving" is an offence that was created to address a particular problem: juries were notably unwilling to convict those who had caused death by driving, of an offence carrying the same potential penalty as murder. In fact the eleven-times disqualified driver referred to above, received ten years' imprisonment - a sentence well within the range of those typically handed down for manslaughter where there has been deliberate violence.
The existing sentencing guidelines for causing death by dangerous driving divide offences into three classes of seriousness, depending on the degree and obviousness of the danger involved in the driving. Given that in all cases, we are looking at the same awful consequence of the offence - the death of another person - then surely it must be right, that penalties should reflect in their range, the degree of blame attaching to the offender.
Dangerous driving in itself may involve no more than knowingly driving a car with a dangerous defect - perhaps a damaged tyre. It is an offence that is frequently dealt with in the Magistrates' Court, and often does not result in a custodial sentence. But ANY offence of dangerous driving could, with the right combination of misfortunes, lead to the death of a blameless person. Are those chance circumstances really to elevate sentences from the level of community orders, to lengthy terms of imprisonment? Some honourable members would appear to think so.
For every case of a child mown down by a reckless, heedless monster, there is one of the usually careful and conscientious (and frequently elderly) driver who makes a horrific error of judgment, resulting in tragic loss of life. It is no exaggeration to say that such a driver can be as severely mentally scarred by the offence, as the relatives of the deceased. Offences of that nature don't perhaps play so well in parliamentary speeches - but the spectrum of sentences needs to provide for the least serious offences, as well as for the worst.
"Careless driving" is merely driving that falls below the standard to expected of a careful and competent driver. It is an offence dealt with daily in most magistrates courts in the land, with three points and a fine: think of the driver reversing onto the road, who didn't see you and caused you to swerve. Then imagine you were riding a bicycle close to the pavement and couldn't get out of the way: when the back of the car hits you, the startled and terrified elderly driver goes for the brake and hits he accelerator by mistake. Should a moment's inattention really take someone to gaol?
At the heart of these questions, is the real purpose of sentencing. If that purpose is to deter crime, and to alter the behaviour of those who might commit it then there can be no place for simply vindictive sentences calibrated according to the outcome of the behaviour in question. There is an obvious injustice in visiting different consequences on essentially the same behaviour, as a result of chance circumstances that led to a particular outcome, no matter how great the tragedy of that outcome. Where the consequences of a person's actions are not reasonably foreseeable, those consequences should play no part in sentencing.
The Sentencing Council - whose remit was visited by Parliament as recently as 2009 - is required to consider the impact of its guidelines on victims. The Justice Select Committee of the House is a statutory consultee as is the Lord Chancellor. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see the Parliamentary "debate" (I use the inverted commas because in a conventional debate, both sides of the question get an airing) as anything more than grandstanding by M.P.s with an eye to their local paper's front page.
Click here to read the transcript of the debate.
Click here to download the current sentencing guidelines on causing death by driving.
