Dangerous Driving

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I pay tribute to the bereaved relatives with us here today, who have suffered pain and hurt.

In October 2017, the Government announced proposals to increase the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years’ imprisonment to life; increase the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink or drugs from 14 years’ imprisonment to life; and create a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving. It is now 2019 and we are still waiting for those changes to be implemented. The Government constantly tell us, “We will bring forward proposals for reform of the law as soon as parliamentary time allows.” When will that be? These proposals are necessary to improve safety on our roads, act as a deterrent to would-be offenders and restore fairness in our justice system. Moreover, they enjoy wide cross-party support and are therefore relatively straightforward to implement. There is simply no excuse for the continued delay.

Let us be clear: while the Government dither, families such as the Platt-May family from Coventry continue to see the killers of their loved ones receive paltry prison sentences, which simply adds to their grief and sense of injustice. Two-year-old Caspar and six-year-old Corey Platt-May were two lovely little boys who lived in my constituency, only yards from where I was brought up as a child. In February last year, they were killed in a horrific hit-and-run incident at the hands of a driver who had no licence or insurance, was doing more than 60 mph in a built-up residential area and was high on cocaine at the time. The driver was given a meagre nine-year jail term, which was increased to 10.5 years on appeal, while the Platt-May family were sentenced to a lifetime of grief at the loss of Corey and Casper. They suffered the double injustice of seeing the perpetrator receive a prison sentence of just a few years.

Casper and Corey’s mother, Louise, said:

“what our family has had to go through, and will continue to experience for the rest of our lives, highlights the need for the toughest possible sentences to be handed out to drivers who ruin lives. We call on the Government to honour Corey and Casper’s legacy by ensuring its proposals for tougher sentences for drivers who kill are made law as soon as practically possible.”

It is time for the Government to heed that call, honour Corey and Casper’s legacy and introduce legislation immediately so that drivers who kill are jailed appropriately.

While it is true that no sentence can alleviate the anguish caused by the loss of a loved one in such horrendous circumstances, a lenient sentence can and does add to a family’s pain. Families are being ripped apart through tragedy, and although nothing can bring their loved ones back, an appropriate prison sentence, which more closely reflects the severity and impact of the crime, keeps the killer off the roads and prevents them from causing similar misery to another family, will surely bring them a semblance of comfort.

It is in the Government’s gift to provide that comfort to these grieving families, to make our roads safer and to put in place a law that is both a proper deterrent and a punishment. I urge the Minister to act without further delay.

Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Friday 11th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

The Bill deals with the most profound and emotive issues. It was notable that many of those who wrote urging me to support the Bill acknowledged—presumably because they recognised the legal and ethical significance of what they advocated—that I might have concerns about changing the law in this area. They are absolutely right.

I intend to focus my comments on three specific areas, all relating to the inadequacy of the so-called safeguards in the Bill. First and foremost, I am concerned that irrespective of how robust the safeguards are perceived to be, they can never be completely effective in protecting vulnerable people against undue coercion or duress. Acts of coercion or duress are, by their very nature, exerted opaquely and in a targeted, underhand way, leaving the victim unable or unwilling to speak out for fear of what they perceive the consequences might be, particularly if they are wholly dependent for their care needs on their oppressor. In such circumstances, how are the two registered medical practitioners and the judge able to satisfy themselves that the decision to end life

“has been reached voluntarily, on an informed basis and without coercion or duress”?

Clearly, they cannot. As a result, the Bill does not adequately safeguard against the terminally ill being manipulated by those with an ulterior motive and forced into making a decision that they do not want to take or is not in their best interests.

Secondly, I am concerned that the definition of a terminally ill person for the purposes of the Bill is someone who

“is reasonably expected to die within six months”.

It is of course impossible, as experts in end-of-life care will affirm, to know definitively how long a person will live. We are, after all, dealing with a prognosis, which is by definition surrounded by inaccuracy. This has been proven many times before by those who have outlived their prognosis, sometimes by many years. Under the terms of the Bill, we would be asking doctors to make life or death decisions about matters about which there can be absolutely no clinical certainty.

Thirdly and finally, I am concerned that the Bill does not provide adequate safeguards or an appropriate legal framework to establish whether an individual

“has the capacity to make the decision to end his or her own life”.

There is no stipulation in the Bill for a mandatory psychological assessment of a patient by a medical practitioner who is registered in the specialty of psychiatry. Instead, the Bill puts the onus for establishing psychological wellbeing and capacity on the attending doctor and the independent doctor, both of whom are principally focused on, and trained to deal with, the state of health rather than the state of mind. With those who request assistance to die, there is an association with clinical depression and hopelessness, and a concern that their capacity to make rational decisions is diminished or impaired as a result.

The Bill does not make such provision and in my opinion cannot therefore be said to contain the appropriate, strong safeguards required. People say that we do not do death well in this country. We need to talk about it, but I do not want this Bill to be the start of that conversation.