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Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab): This week, my Select Committee—the Science and Technology Committee—is taking evidence in New York and Washington. I pulled out of the visit at the last minute because I had promised several of my constituents that I would not only push for a change in the law in this policy area, but bring their concerns to the Floor of the House and try to express some of their grief.
I want particularly to discuss clauses 20 to 33, as amended in the other place, on new offences, increases in penalties, and other provisions about offences. Since my election to Parliament in 1997, I have been outraged by the outcome of several trials following serious road traffic accidents that have resulted in the death of my constituents. The first family that I dealt with was the Willis family, whose son Gareth was killed at the age of 29 on 22 May 1999 in a head-on crash on the crown of a bridge by a hit-and-run driver while riding his motorcycle. His son, Joseph, aged seven, was a pillion passenger. Although he was thrown off the bike into a field and badly injured, he fortunately survived. However, the car driver ran away from the scene of the accident, although he gave himself up the following day.
Initially, the 31-year-old driver was given a 30-month sentence for causing death by dangerous driving and banned from driving for five years. Half the sentence was suspended for community service. The driver had had only two driving lessons, was driving at more than 50 mph in a 30 mph restricted area without a licence or insurance. He had several previous car crime convictions and had been drinking earlier that day.
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Gareth's family were devastated by their loss and especially by the sentence—so much so that they came to see me. The Attorney-General referred the case to the Court of Appeal and the driver's sentence was increased, but only by one year. Regrettably, the appeal was heard on 16 November 2000 without the family being informed or invited to make an oral impact submission, which they were entitled to make, about the effect of the accident on the family.
Another tragedy with which I have dealt was the death of eight-year-old Billy Joe Dean in the village of Stoneclough, which lies between Bolton and Bury. A 40-year-old male was riding his 1,000 cc Suzuki motor cycle on 24 August 2002, having just left a public house. Evidence was given in court that he accelerated to such an extent that he performed a wheelie as he approached a double bend. The motor cyclist lost control of the vehicle, which glanced off an approaching Porsche and hit Billy Joe as he was walking along the pavement. Billy Joe died almost immediately from his injuries because he was crushed by the motor cycle, which flew through the air and hit him against a garden wall. The accident shook the village of Stoneclough and the BBC chose it as one of two cases of causing death by dangerous driving that it included in a documentary, which was broadcast with a view to getting the change in the law that the Bill tries to establish.
The motor cyclist received a six-year jail sentence for causing death by dangerous driving, driving without insurance and driving while disqualified. The sentence was reduced to five years in the Court of Appeal. He was also banned from driving for eight years. He had badly injured himself in the collision and submitted a guilty plea in court. Like the Willis family, the Dean family learned of the reduction of the sentence on appeal through reading about it in the Bolton Evening News. Both families were outraged at the outcome of the trials and the way in which they, as indirect victims of their sons' deaths, had been treated by the British judicial system.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 increased the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 10 to 14 years, but the courts hardly ever apply the sentence at the top end of the range.
Six other tragic accidents, which occurred in my constituency or a few yards outside its boundary, led to the deaths of three-year-old Amicie Nwokeochar on 15 November 2003; 36-year-old Lisa Halligan and 28-year-old Michael Jeffries, killed in the same accident on 1 May 2004; 13-year-old Carla Bate on 8 August 2004; nine-year-old Ellesse Ruth Gore on 19 October 2005; 46-year-old Ellen Newman, killed, like Billy Joe, on the bends in Stoneclough village on 5 January this year, and 45-year-old Laura Entwistle on 21 January this year.
I have been closely involved with the Nwokeochar tragedy, which was caused by a gentleman who was a few weeks away from his 90th birthday. I have applied for an Adjournment debate to bring to light the safety record of older drivers and I shall therefore not dwell on that incident today. I am also involved with the family of Ellen Newman. They recently approached me for help.
In two of the six accidents that I just cited, several other people were seriously injured. In four, the driver left the scene of the accident. The families of the victims
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of such tragedies often find it hard to accept the significantly reduced sentences that are given when the driver enters a guilty plea. That is a problem. Victims' families also know that prisoners can be released on a Parole Board hearing after the half-way point of the sentence. They will be released on licence two thirds of the way through a sentence in any case. In some cases, the drivers are released from prison not long after the trials, when the families continue to grieve. I do not believe that those families ever stop grieving.
When a person—they are nearly all young men—drives a stolen car without a licence or insurance at high speeds in restricted areas, especially if he has previous convictions for road traffic offences, or has taken alcohol or other drugs that affect his ability to drive, and kills another person, often leaving the scene of the accident, the courts should inflict a severe sentence, which takes account of all the offences committed on the day. Drivers who kill while committing multiple offences should be charged with a greater offence than causing death by dangerous driving. The offence of vehicle homicide has been floated in some quarters.
"Dangerous Driving and the Law", an evaluation of the operation of the Road Traffic Act 1991, which was commissioned by the former Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and published in 2002, reports that 46 per cent. of the dangerous driving offences that it examined were committed by multiple offenders—those, mainly young males, who have previous road traffic convictions.
It is clear to me from hon. Members' contributions, including mine, since the 1997 general election, that the law on serious traffic offences is regarded as unsatisfactory. We reflect the view of the public, who are rightly outraged by a legal system that considers death and injury to be less serious if it is caused by someone driving a motor vehicle. Those who commit crimes such as petty theft or burglary regularly receive more severe sentences from the courts than those who kill—often wilfully—on our British road system.
For those reasons, I welcome the new offences, for which the Bill provides, of causing death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured, with a maximum sentence—hopefully, in each case—of two years. An amazing 1.2 million drivers—one in 20 motorists—regularly drive without insurance.
In England and Wales, an indictable offence of manslaughter is available but few prosecutions are made under that heading. RoadPeace believes that the proper charge following a culpable road death is manslaughter. However, I welcome the fact that the Bill allows, for the first time, an alternative verdict to be brought when prosecution for an offence of manslaughter fails.
The test for dangerous driving in section 2A of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is defined thus:
"Did the driver's driving fall far below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver and would it be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous?"
It can be difficult to obtain a conviction of causing death by dangerous driving under that definition, as police forces throughout the country will confirm.
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Trials collapse for various reasons, including a lack of convincing evidence produced by either the police or the forensic services, failure of witnesses to convince either a judge or a jury of the driver's guilt, and sometimes a badly handled prosecution case. Even in successful cases, the sentences applied are often low, given that the driver's behaviour has resulted in one and sometimes more deaths. The courts do not appear to appreciate that the maximum sentence that is currently available is 14 years.
The lesser offence of dangerous driving is an either-way offence, with a maximum penalty of only two years' imprisonment. The summary offence of careless and inconsiderate driving is available in two forms: driving without due care and attention, or driving without reasonable consideration for other road users. Clause 23 increases the maximum penalty for the offence of careless driving from £2,500 to £5,000. I welcome that.
A new indictable offence of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs was introduced, on the recommendation of the 1988 North report, by the Road Traffic Act 1991. A further indictable offence of causing injury by furious driving was introduced by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and right hon. and hon. Members might have noticed that the Bill retains that rather curious offence.
The lesser charge of careless driving often appears inappropriate, particularly in cases in which there has been a fatality and the evidence points to the fact that there has been an element of dangerous driving. The gap between the higher offence of dangerous driving and the lower offence of careless driving is seen by many, including me, as just too great. That is why I support the introduction of the new offence of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, with a maximum sentence of five years, as set out in clause 20.
That is one of the more controversial aspects of the Bill. It is almost exclusively opposed by the legal profession, as it will make accidental conduct seriously criminal and worthy of imprisonment for the first time. However, the Crown Prosecution Service has stated:
"The new offence will be valuable in bridging the existing gap between causing death by dangerous driving and careless driving. In the most difficult cases that fall very close to the line dividing these two offences, it will enable prosecutors to place both offences on the indictment, thus allowing the jury to make their assessments of the facts."
Research has found that the introduction of a new offence of causing death by careless driving was favoured by only 55 per cent. of those who responded to a postal survey—not a great percentage. Nevertheless, most right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to this debate since I came to the House in 1997 appear to believe that the consequences of a motorist's action, especially in provable cases of dangerous driving, should be taken into consideration by the courts. Although the present law allows that, the courts tend to behave differently. Even with a charge of careless driving, the fact that death has been a consequence should be a serious consideration in some cases, but at present it is not, even though it has been allowed by the law in England since the Simmonds appeal in January 1999.
It is my opinion that the most serious cases of road traffic accidents involving death and serious injury should be dealt with by the Crown court; the majority
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are dealt with at present by magistrates courts. That was also the opinion expressed in the Transport Committee's report on traffic law and its enforcement, published at the end of 2004.
Probably one of the most difficult cases that I have been closely involved with is the Haque case. My constituent, five-year-old Hishamul Haque, was killed at the Camelot theme park at Charnock Richard, near Chorley in Lancashire, on the evening of 18 April 2004. The Haque family had travelled with their relatives and several children to the theme park in three cars during the morning, and had spent the entire day enjoying themselves at Camelot. They decided to return to their cars at about 5.30 pm, where they had some refreshments. Then, a game of football began in the almost empty car parking area. On the fringe of the car park are larger bays for the parking of coaches and buses, and the two areas are separated by another area which is marked by broad white lines and is used as a service road to the car parks.
A service bus entered the car park just after 6 pm and proceeded to drive along the service road. The bus driver admits seeing the group playing football to his right, and also admits having seen Hishamul Haque chase the football out of the crowd in his direction and obviously across the path of the bus. The driver's explanation was that he kept to the left of the service road to avoid a collision with the young boy, who was running from his right towards the bus. However, the driver did not brake to stop the bus, and neither did he sound his horn. He also claims not to have seen or heard Mr. Haque, the father, shouting and gesticulating at him about the approaching danger. Tragically, it was too late and Hishamul was crushed by the front and rear wheels of the bus. The collision occurred in the part of the car park reserved for coaches and buses, to the left of the service road.
There has been a dispute about the speed of the bus. The driver claimed that he was driving at between 10 and 15 mph, while Mr. Haque claimed that he was driving at between 30 and 35 mph. Other witnesses, and evidence from a police reconstruction of the accident, support the driver's account. Lancashire police arrested the driver on a charge of suspected manslaughter. However, following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, the driver was charged with causing death by dangerous driving. Before His Honour Judge Slinger in the Crown court at Preston on 9 December 2004, the defence was successful in applying for the proceedings to be dismissed on the ground that the evidence did not meet the test for dangerous driving in section 2A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, to which I have just referred.
Obviously, the family were devastated by this decision and they came to see me for advice. I arranged a meeting with the Crown Prosecution Service at Preston to discuss Judge Slinger's decision. On 13 to 15 February 2006, a trial was held in Chorley magistrates court before Judge Ward, and the driver was acquitted of a careless driving charge.
While Britain has the safest roads in Europe, too many people still die every year and 10 times more are injured. Significantly, almost one third of the deaths are caused by a person at work on the roads. I welcome the
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progress that the Bill makes, and I congratulate the Transport Committee and the Department for Transport on all the work that they have done to allow the Bill to come before the House. During the last summer vacation, I read many research reports published by the Department, and I am full of praise for the amount of work that it has done. I am grateful for this opportunity to enter into a debate on a policy area that is of great interest to many of my constituents.
3.17 pm
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