Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con) I beg to move, That this
House has considered death by dangerous driving and sentencing.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie,
and...Request free trial
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I beg to move,
That this House has considered death by dangerous
driving and sentencing.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship,
Mr Hosie, and I thank the House of Commons digital
team for their support in publicising this debate
on social media. They put details of the debate on
the House of Commons website, and I understand that
5,500 people saw that post and several hundred
engaged with it. From the key themes identified,
those who have lost loved ones said that they felt
they were serving a life sentence, and they did not
feel that the person convicted of causing death by
dangerous driving received an adequate sentence.
In support of tougher sentencing, Carole said:
“Definitely. We are now a family living a life
sentence. The dangerous driver that caused my
19-year-old son’s death served 22 months and is out
living their life.”
Patricia said:
“My 17-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk
driver. He got two years, four months, while I am
doing life. I’m so angry.”
I thank those members of the public who took the
time to comment, especially those personally
affected by this topic.
In securing this debate I intended to support a
campaign initiated recently by the Express and
Star, following recent tragic cases in the black
country. I therefore make no apology for borrowing
from articles that that paper, and others, have
published on this subject. The Express and Star’s
“Stop the Speeders” campaign has attracted
thousands of signatures, and it urges the
Government to introduce tougher sentences for
killer drivers. I am also extremely grateful for
the support of Walsall Labour councillor, Doug
James, who has spoken of his support for the
campaign.
Support for tougher sentencing is echoed right
across the country, and I pay particular tribute to
my hon. Friend the Member for North East
Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) for his work in
this area following a very sad case in his
constituency. On 20 February 2011, 22-year-old
Jamie Butcher was crossing at a pelican crossing in
Wisbech when a speeding driver careered into him,
throwing him 43 metres through the air and killing
him instantly. He had been walking into town after
a family dinner with his parents when the driver,
who was travelling at twice the 30 mph speed limit,
ran a red light and killed him. The driver was
sentenced to just 43 months in prison. Following
their son’s death, Steve Green and Tina Butcher
joined road safety charity Brake, and campaigned
relentlessly for a change in the law. Partly as a
result of their hard work, in December 2016 the
Government launched a consultation on driving
offences and penalties relating to causing death or
serious injury.
For the purpose of this debate I would like to draw
attention to the summary findings in respect of the
penalty for death by dangerous driving. Consultees
were asked:
“Do you think that the maximum penalty for causing
death by dangerous driving adequately reflects the
culpability of the offending behaviour or should it
be increased from 14 years’ imprisonment to life?”
Some 70% of the 8,305 respondents to that question
thought that the maximum penalty for the offence of
causing death by dangerous driving should be
increased to life imprisonment. Only 15% of
respondents thought that the current 14 years was
adequate. Those who agreed with an increase in the
maximum penalty commented that that would provide
the courts with tougher sentencing powers in the
most serious cases.
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this
debate. Does he agree that in many of these
instances the charge should be manslaughter, not
death by dangerous driving? If someone were to kill
another person in any other circumstance through
dangerous or reckless behaviour, they would be
charged with manslaughter, yet it seems that that
is not the case on the roads. With a charge of
manslaughter the court could give a maximum of life
imprisonment rather than 14 years.
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I completely concur with my hon. Friend, and I will
touch partly on that issue later in my speech.
It was also argued that an increased maximum
penalty would better reflect the culpability of
dangerous driving behaviours and the disregard that
some motorists had for others. A number of
respondents also suggested that deliberate driving
actions directed at other road users should be
charged as murder or manslaughter. Under the
current law, the Crown Prosecution Service can, and
will, charge a person with manslaughter where the
evidence supports that charge. However, as many of
those who did not agree with an increase commented,
in many driving cases the offending behaviour,
which may be highly irresponsible, does not suggest
that the vehicle was intentionally used as a weapon
to kill or commit grievous bodily harm, so it would
not amount to murder or manslaughter.
It was also suggested that causing death by
dangerous driving should attract the same sentence
as murder or manslaughter because the harm
caused—the death of the victim—is the same in all
three offences. Increasing the maximum penalty for
this offence would enable the courts to impose a
life sentence or any lesser sentence, including a
determinate sentence of any length. However,
increasing the maximum penalty does not guarantee
sentence length, as decisions on sentencing remain
with the independent courts and are made on a
case-by-case basis.
Some also suggested that consecutive sentences
should be imposed for each death caused. It is an
established principle of law that sentences are
served concurrently when they relate to the same
course of events, and consecutively when they
relate to separate incidents. The court will impose
a sentence length that reflects the seriousness of
the offending behaviour. Therefore, in
circumstances where multiple deaths were the result
of a single incident, concurrent sentences will be
imposed by the court, but it will take account of
the number of victims when setting the overall
length of the sentence.
Where are we today, and why are we still debating
this subject in Westminster Hall, rather than the
Chamber of the House of Commons? Four months after
the publication of the consultation findings, the
law remains unchanged and, as of today, no
Government time has been allocated to implement
those changes. That can be of no comfort to the
family of John Hickinbottom, whose killer recently
received a seven-year sentence for killing John in
Walsall while speeding. The court heard that on
Friday 9 June 2017, Craig Edwards got behind the
wheel, despite pleas from his mother to hand over
the keys to his BMW because he was drunk. He
travelled just a quarter of a mile before losing
control of the car as it sped at almost twice the
30 mph limit along Bentley Road North in Walsall.
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I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing up
this issue for consideration by the House. In
Northern Ireland, the reduction of the
drink-driving limit has reduced deaths and
accidents significantly. Importantly, it has also
reduced the police’s workload. Does he agree that
liaising with the devolved Administrations to
ascertain their direction would be helpful, and
that reducing the drink-driving limit to 50 mg in
England and on the mainland would be a step in the
right direction?
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That is an interesting suggestion. Perhaps the
Minister will comment on that when he replies to
the debate.
Taking a right-hand turn, Craig Edwards careered on
to the pavement, hitting Mr Hickinbottom, a retired
builder from Bentley, who died three days later
last June. Mr Howard Searle, prosecuting, said that
Edwards left the wrecked BMW clutching a bottle of
Baileys and, when told by an eyewitness that he had
knocked down a pedestrian, replied, “So?”
The 29-year-old defendant from Walsall had 15
previous convictions for 34 offences, including two
previous cases of dangerous driving. He was jailed
for just seven years after admitting causing death
by dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene
of an accident, driving when disqualified,
drink-driving and having no insurance. He was also
banned from driving for four and a half years on
release from prison.
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My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. There can
be no excuse for the Government not to take the
matter forward, because that example clearly shows
why this should be treated like manslaughter. That
driver’s disgraceful actions merit nothing short of
a manslaughter punishment.
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I completely agree with my hon. Friend. People need
to understand that when they are in control of a
vehicle, it is a lethal weapon, and that is
manslaughter.
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I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent speech he
has delivered so far and the harrowing local cases
he has explained. In Scotland over the last five
years we have had 166 convictions for death by
dangerous driving. However, many of the concerns he
has raised in England are also pertinent in
Scotland, where there are concerns about the overly
lenient sentences. Does he agree that this is an
issue that the devolved Administrations must also
look at?
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I completely agree. The crime is the same,
regardless of where in the United Kingdom it is
committed, and the impact is felt equally.
The time has come. The Government must now make
Government time available to implement the change.
We must ensure not only that those who kill while
speeding face the full force of the law, but that
there is a new charge for those who fail to stop at
the scene of an accident. On that point, I
completely agree with Brake, the road safety
charity, which said:
“There needs to be a new charge of ‘failing to stop
following a fatal or serious injury crash’. This
would not have any requirement to prove the driver
who failed to stop caused the crash, as there can
be an assumption that if they fled, they caused it.
This is necessary because, at present, British law
acts as an incentive for the worst law-breaking
drivers to flee a crash if they kill someone. If a
drink or drug driver kills someone and remains at
the scene, they are likely to be tested for alcohol
or drugs, prosecuted for ‘causing death by careless
driving when under the influence of alcohol or
drugs’, and face up to 14 years’ imprisonment. But
if they run away and sober up, and there was no
other evidence of careless or dangerous driving,
they can only be prosecuted for the minor offence
of ‘failing to stop or report an accident’, which
carries a paltry maximum sentence of six months. If
someone steals a car, kills someone and remains at
the scene, they will be identified by the police as
driving a stolen car. They can be prosecuted for
‘aggravated vehicle taking’ and face a maximum 14
years’ imprisonment. Much better to flee, ditch the
car, and hope never to be identified. Drivers who
hit and run are despicable: to escape the law, they
leave behind suffering and dying victims in need of
urgent medical attention. The law must be changed
to remove this incentive to flee.”
This Government are on the side of those affected
by atrocious crimes of that kind. We sympathise
completely with the families of those affected and
we understand the need to send a strong message to
the public that we will come down hard on those who
show total disregard for the lives of others.
I will finish by asking two things of the Minister.
First, I ask him to listen to the thousands of
people who have already backed the campaign by the
Express and Star asking the Government to implement
tougher sentences for killer drivers. Secondly, I
ask him to listen to the call from Brake, the road
safety charity, to create a new offence of failing
to stop following a fatal or serious injury crash.
Let us work together to ensure that fewer families
have to grieve the loss of loved ones. Let us stop
the speeders.
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It is a great privilege to serve under your
chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I begin by paying tribute to
my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie
Hughes) for bringing this extremely important debate
to the House. I also pay tribute to the work of the
Express and Star and to the local Labour councillor,
Doug James, who has done an enormous amount of work
on the issue.
This issue combines the House across different
parties, linking people from Scotland, Northern
Ireland and England, and I am sure that colleagues
from Wales would be here too, because, as my hon.
Friend pointed out in his eloquent speech, this
horrifying tragedy is something that does not stop at
any national border. He has provided, much more
eloquently than I can, a description of what that
means for a family. We have seen cases in the last
week where dangerous drivers have killed a toddler
and a baby in a pram by charging across a road. Those
are people whose recklessness with 1.5 tonnes of
metal—an incredibly dangerous weapon—is unbelievable.
The loss that it means for a family is something
unimaginable. The hole it leaves in somebody’s life
to have lost a child or a loved one in that way is
unbelievable.
That is why we as a Government have committed to
increasing the penalty for causing death by dangerous
driving to a life sentence, and why we are now
working to find time in the legislative agenda to
bring that in. That needs to happen, and the
fundamental reason for that is that families feel the
system is not just. They feel it is not fair to them
or to their experience. That has also been brought
forward clearly by my hon. Friends the Members for
Dartford (Gareth Johnson), for North Swindon (Justin
Tomlinson) and for Moray (Douglas Ross), by the hon.
Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and indeed by my
right hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood
and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who raised it with me yesterday
in relation to his constituents.
The one area where the Government would have some
disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for
Walsall North is on the question of somebody fleeing
the scene. There is already an offence for fleeing
the scene, and although he pointed out that that in
itself is a short offence, it is a very serious
aggravating circumstance when the judge comes to
convict. Were the judge to find that somebody had
killed someone and then fled the scene, it would
significantly increase the sentence that the judge
was able to give. Once the opportunity for a maximum
life sentence for causing death by dangerous driving
is provided, fleeing the scene is an aggravating
factor that would drive the sentence up towards a
life sentence.
I know that Members of Parliament have challenged
that, so I will be clear about what we are talking
about. It is of course true that we are dealing with
an enormous number of different types of situation.
Those situations range all the way from somebody who
is drunk, driving at twice the speed limit in a town
and speeding through a red light, to my 25-year-old
constituent who overtook, sober, at 5 in the
afternoon and killed somebody coming the other way
because he misjudged his overtaking. All of us in
this House understand the importance of the judge and
jury in making those difficult decisions in different
cases.
We should be in absolutely no doubt about what
dangerous driving means. Dangerous driving means that
all those people, whatever they were doing, fell well
below the standard we would expect of a careful and
competent driver. They ought to have been aware of
their physical surroundings, aware of the normal laws
of causation, aware of the terrible danger posed by
the vehicle they were driving, and aware that their
dangerousness caused the ultimate thing—a lack of
life.
The disagreement over whether that should be a case
of murder is around the question of intention. This
House believes that there is a difference between
somebody who intentionally sets out to murder
someone—to stab or shoot them—and somebody who is
behaving dangerously in a car, who is overtaking, who
may not intend to kill the person. However, the
impact on the family is exactly the same; whether the
individual intended to kill their family member or
accidentally killed their family member, the impact
is the same. That is why we owe a huge debt of
gratitude to the Members of Parliament who have
campaigned tirelessly on the issue, which has been
neglected by this House. That is also why we will be
bringing legislation forward, and why I pay tribute
again to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North,
to the Express and Star, and to all the Members of
the House who have campaigned on this important
issue.
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The Minister is right to point out that there are a
range of circumstances. That is why courts should be
given lengthy maximum penalties, to cater for the
different scenarios that can arise. We have a
situation where the maximum penalty for someone
charged with causing death by driving without due
care and attention and then fleeing the scene is just
three years. Worse than that, any unduly lenient
sentence cannot even be appealed by the prosecution.
Therefore, we need the matter to be reviewed right
across the board.
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The Government’s belief is that, by increasing the
maximum sentence to a life sentence for causing death
in that situation, the distinction my hon. Friend is
drawing between different types of crime—in
particular, the question of manslaughter that he
raised in his intervention earlier—will be dealt
with. The maximum penalty of life that the Government
will introduce will then allow life sentences to be
imposed on an individual who did that, regardless of
whether it was done in a car or in some other
fashion. With that, I will conclude with another
tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall
North.
Question put and agreed to.
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