The justice system a little too late for those who have already perished
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, has sent a directive to the prosecutors of England and Wales to seek a more serious offence where one's driving has led to one's death. Many times we have heard reports of someone driving potentially with an aggravated factor of drugs or drink or adrenaline and their driving is such that it is dangerous and leads to someone dying. In many cases it is a pedestrian or a passenger in the offending vehicle.
Mr Macdonald has recognised that the conviction of careless driving has undermined the confidence of the public when the actions in question has led to such tragic results. How is it that it is taking so long for someone in authority to recognise that the dangerous driving that kills is being punished with nothing more than a feather rather than the belt? How does someone drive dangerously, knock someone over which leads to that person's death, is found and charge and then convicted for careless driving that ends in a ban and/or fine? The convicted walks out of court, banned, fined yet otherwise at liberty while the grieving family have an unnecessary, reckless death to contend with, forever??
This government is rubbish. I despise Tony Blair and canot wait for him to go for at least a new leader and a new chance of a policy change in all aspects of our living in this country, because things have minutely improved, and that is a very fine minute amount indeed. That amount is down to the change from Conservative to Labour, that is the only improvement we have had from Labour's coming to power since 1997. I cannot go into all aspects otherwise this would be an extensive article right through the next 12 months. But one aspect I find I am at odds with is crime and there has been little to no improvement there.
Gun crime is more than before, just merely by judging by the amount of gun incidents we hear and read. How programmes like Crimewatch say these crimes are a minority, do have good dreams, is bewildering. That is absolute rubbish. You cannot even open your window much less your front or back door. The call around the country is for all citizens to be more alert, more security conscious, and if something feels wrong, then suspect that it is. That may lead to some paranoia but which is better, that or being a victim?
When there is conduct that leads to one's death, it is serious. Once investigated and found to have had aggravated elements, there is a crime. One should not be conducting aggravated movements in the presence of others, the courts shold consider that as a dangerous element. The ignorance of not knowing what you are doing to be considered so dangerous is one for the prosecution to prove and the defence to counter. Considering the driver who drives with excess speed for any reason, have drugs or drink in their system, who then knocks someone over and that results in that pedestrian's death, that is in my opinion a factor that places the driver in a potential custodial position upon conviction. With no shadow of a doubt. It is scandalous.
The police now have powers to deal with drivers who have no tax, no insurance, no licence or all three and are behind the wheel of a car. Any such driver is risking their vehicle or the vehicle they are driving in being seized and if not claimed later, being crushed. The police have on-board computer systems that can instantly focus on a licence plate and recognise if there are details of tax or insurance on the vehicle or if an unlicenced driver belongs to that registration. That seems to be one response to cut down on illegal drivers. Yet there can be legal drivers who go on to commit death through dangerous driving.
Consider how former boxer Naseem Hamed drove his vehicle dangerously as he hit another vehicle whilst on the wrong side of the road because he went to overtake the car in front, who he also hit afterwards. As Hamed was more or less unhurt, the other driver suffered multiple fractures to the majority of his body. Hamed left the scene because other drivers witnessed it all and were so shocked they may have lynched him. Sounds plausible in the circumstance, I would have loved to have lynched him, because the scene was appalling. Yet Mr Hamed was jailed for 15months, and audaciously applied to be released for the birth of his newborn child soon after. Four months into his sentence he was released on the ridiculous eletronic tagging curfew that has already been exposed as breakable and forces police to find the offending offender.
One would spend half their time in jail for a sentence of less than four years, then be released on licence, but not Hamed. Jermaine Pennant, previously of Arsenal and Birmingham and now with Liverpool Football Club, was released early on the same curfew and even played with it on, which makes it all the more farcical. But I digress. For such a dangerous maneouvre that put another driver in awful hospitalisation that required the shortening of one leg, at the expense of an ego that thrived on huge finance, swagger and complete defiance of the motoring laws and respect with four previous convictions for speeding, Hamed should have been sentenced to five years. Anthony Burgin, the injured driver, could have been killed along with his wife.
It is not the DPP who should send directives to his prosecutors, it is the government to make appropriate legislative changes to the concept of careless and dangerous driving. They are happy to see drivers kill people on the road as long as it avoids anyone connected to them, before they actually get down to proper decisions. Consider that there is support for the law against pornographic images that depict pain and/or suffering in various forms because one convicted killer was discovered to have killed his victim under the obsession of submitting strangulation during sexual contact, yet the numerous cases over the past decade of drivers who kill others through their aggravated driving and walk free from court with nothing more than a ban and/or fine seems not to be important enough for the government to act.
The few have priority over the many. The accolade of the government.
Mr Macdonald has recognised that the conviction of careless driving has undermined the confidence of the public when the actions in question has led to such tragic results. How is it that it is taking so long for someone in authority to recognise that the dangerous driving that kills is being punished with nothing more than a feather rather than the belt? How does someone drive dangerously, knock someone over which leads to that person's death, is found and charge and then convicted for careless driving that ends in a ban and/or fine? The convicted walks out of court, banned, fined yet otherwise at liberty while the grieving family have an unnecessary, reckless death to contend with, forever??
This government is rubbish. I despise Tony Blair and canot wait for him to go for at least a new leader and a new chance of a policy change in all aspects of our living in this country, because things have minutely improved, and that is a very fine minute amount indeed. That amount is down to the change from Conservative to Labour, that is the only improvement we have had from Labour's coming to power since 1997. I cannot go into all aspects otherwise this would be an extensive article right through the next 12 months. But one aspect I find I am at odds with is crime and there has been little to no improvement there.
Gun crime is more than before, just merely by judging by the amount of gun incidents we hear and read. How programmes like Crimewatch say these crimes are a minority, do have good dreams, is bewildering. That is absolute rubbish. You cannot even open your window much less your front or back door. The call around the country is for all citizens to be more alert, more security conscious, and if something feels wrong, then suspect that it is. That may lead to some paranoia but which is better, that or being a victim?
When there is conduct that leads to one's death, it is serious. Once investigated and found to have had aggravated elements, there is a crime. One should not be conducting aggravated movements in the presence of others, the courts shold consider that as a dangerous element. The ignorance of not knowing what you are doing to be considered so dangerous is one for the prosecution to prove and the defence to counter. Considering the driver who drives with excess speed for any reason, have drugs or drink in their system, who then knocks someone over and that results in that pedestrian's death, that is in my opinion a factor that places the driver in a potential custodial position upon conviction. With no shadow of a doubt. It is scandalous.
The police now have powers to deal with drivers who have no tax, no insurance, no licence or all three and are behind the wheel of a car. Any such driver is risking their vehicle or the vehicle they are driving in being seized and if not claimed later, being crushed. The police have on-board computer systems that can instantly focus on a licence plate and recognise if there are details of tax or insurance on the vehicle or if an unlicenced driver belongs to that registration. That seems to be one response to cut down on illegal drivers. Yet there can be legal drivers who go on to commit death through dangerous driving.
Consider how former boxer Naseem Hamed drove his vehicle dangerously as he hit another vehicle whilst on the wrong side of the road because he went to overtake the car in front, who he also hit afterwards. As Hamed was more or less unhurt, the other driver suffered multiple fractures to the majority of his body. Hamed left the scene because other drivers witnessed it all and were so shocked they may have lynched him. Sounds plausible in the circumstance, I would have loved to have lynched him, because the scene was appalling. Yet Mr Hamed was jailed for 15months, and audaciously applied to be released for the birth of his newborn child soon after. Four months into his sentence he was released on the ridiculous eletronic tagging curfew that has already been exposed as breakable and forces police to find the offending offender.
One would spend half their time in jail for a sentence of less than four years, then be released on licence, but not Hamed. Jermaine Pennant, previously of Arsenal and Birmingham and now with Liverpool Football Club, was released early on the same curfew and even played with it on, which makes it all the more farcical. But I digress. For such a dangerous maneouvre that put another driver in awful hospitalisation that required the shortening of one leg, at the expense of an ego that thrived on huge finance, swagger and complete defiance of the motoring laws and respect with four previous convictions for speeding, Hamed should have been sentenced to five years. Anthony Burgin, the injured driver, could have been killed along with his wife.
It is not the DPP who should send directives to his prosecutors, it is the government to make appropriate legislative changes to the concept of careless and dangerous driving. They are happy to see drivers kill people on the road as long as it avoids anyone connected to them, before they actually get down to proper decisions. Consider that there is support for the law against pornographic images that depict pain and/or suffering in various forms because one convicted killer was discovered to have killed his victim under the obsession of submitting strangulation during sexual contact, yet the numerous cases over the past decade of drivers who kill others through their aggravated driving and walk free from court with nothing more than a ban and/or fine seems not to be important enough for the government to act.
The few have priority over the many. The accolade of the government.
posted by RedsMan at 9/10/2006 12:34:00 PM
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