New Bill could strengthen criminal driving penalties
A new Bill that would strengthen penalties related to serious criminal driving offences has been presented in the House of Commons by a Leeds MP.
Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, said The Bill would redefine offences that lead to serious injury or death and amend bail conditions for those charged with them; enhance the standards of investigation, both by the police and in the courts; and improve the treatment of victims of such offences and their families within the justice system.
The Lib Dem MP has urged changes are needed throughout the justice system from investigations and prosecutions to charges and sentencing to deter people from behaving so recklessly'' behind the wheel.
He told the Commons “we must see by next year a change across the board to at last deliver justice for victims and their families''.
He said he was speaking on behalf of many families from across the country, including those involved in two awful cases in his constituency, and he dedicated the Bill to all those who had lost their lives.
In some, indeed too many of these cases, victims of these serious crimes and their families have been badly let down and we need a number of changes to ensure proper justice is delivered in the future.''
The Bill calls for the scrapping of both charges and instead for a system to be introduced where all dangerous driving is regarded as a category of offence which can have the minimum or the maximum, giving judges discretion.
Mr Mulholland said careless is an inappropriate and actually offensive term'' to use for criminally bad driving, and he added that careless driving hadinstitutionalised dishonesty into our justice system and that needs to be rectified''.
He said 2014-15 saw 389 people killed in England and Wales alone due to dangerous driving.
A meeting of campaigning relatives and their MPs in December 2014, he said, had produced a manifesto, Better Justice for Victims of Criminal Driving and Their Families, which was backed by road safety charity Brake.
At the centre of the campaign is 17-year-old Rebecca Still, who lost her 16-year-old brother Jamie to a drunk and speeding driver five years ago.
"It was New Year’s Eve in 2010," says Rebecca. "He just went out to pick up some prawn crackers because we were celebrating. And then my mum got a call from his friend to say he'd been knocked over. He died that night."
The driver who hit him didn't lose his license until eight months after the incident, when he was sentenced to four years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving.
Rebecca began the Jamie Still Campaign in his memory and started a petition to lobby parliament for stiffer sentencing guidelines. In 2013, that petition was taken to Downing Street with more than 13,000 signatures.
"The tragedy happened in December and the first hearing was in August, which is when he lost his driving license," says Rebecca.
"He got a five year driving ban, which started the day he went to prison.
"It happens so often, and I think if we had tougher laws it would deter people. The driver who killed my brother got a year off for being young because he was 21 but he was still five years older than my brother. He apparently showed remorse but he didn't to my family, only to the judge. So there really is no justice and things need to change.
"My mum actually suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from watching it happen because she went down to the scene and then was in the operating theatre with him. My dad is a fireman so he still has to go to accidents and sees it all the time. His friends who watched it happen have really suffered. One attempted suicide. So it's not just one life, it could have been many more."
The Bill's second reading is earmarked for March 11, 2016.