Dangerous Driving

Helen Jones Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 236952 relating to dangerous driving.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Moon. The petition calls for life sentences for causing death by dangerous driving.

To lose a child is the worst thing that most of us could imagine. To lose a child at the age of only four, mown down by a speeding driver, is something we do not even wish to imagine. Yet that is what happened to Mr and Mrs Youens, who started the petition. To listen to their story is to step into a world of horror. To hear about parents called to a hospital knowing that something must be dreadfully wrong; to see their child grievously injured; to have to follow the ambulance transferring her to Alder Hey, unable to go into that ambulance because the doctors were still working to keep her alive; and to hear their story of lying with their daughter until she died is something I do not have the words to describe. I cannot even pretend to plumb the depths of their grief, but I do congratulate them on their courage and tenacity in wanting something good to come out of that grief. They began that process when they allowed some of Violet’s organs to be donated after her death to save other lives. Many of her organs could not be used because her injuries were so severe. Her parents have continued the process with the petition because, as they rightly say, they do not want anyone else to suffer.

Violet-Grace was with her grandmother when a car doing 83 mph in a 30 mph zone mounted the pavement. The car was stolen and had false numberplates. Violet suffered catastrophic injuries and died later. Her grandmother suffered life-changing injuries. The driver and his passenger did not even attempt to help, and they fled the scene. There is evidence that they had to step over the bodies of their victims lying in the road to get out of the car. The driver, Aidan McAteer, fled to Amsterdam to clear his head, as he said later, and smoke some weed. Clearly, he thought it was all about him. Eventually, he returned to this country and was tried and sentenced to nine years and four months. His passenger got six years and eight months. Neither showed any remorse, either at the time or later. In fact, they had their sentences increased while in jail for having illegal mobile phones and posting on social media. That does not seem much for a young life so cruelly taken and other lives destroyed in the process. As Mr and Mrs Youens said to me, the driver and his passenger will be out after serving less time than Violet-Grace lived.

The law does not cope well with such offences. It leaves families believing they have not had justice and the public looking on in amazement at what seem to be unduly lenient sentences. I met some of the families today and heard their stories. They told me that they felt they were treated as though they were the criminals. They were not allowed to show emotion in court and were sometimes told not to sit in the court. They were not allowed to read out all their victim statement in case it upset the perpetrator. They sometimes felt that they were the ones on trial. These cases are not unique. There are a lot of them, and our justice system is simply not working for these people.

I have other examples. In February this year, a driver was sentenced for causing the death of a pedestrian and catastrophic damage to a house when he was driving at twice the legal speed limit. He was a lorry driver—a professional—and he got 10 years and six months. In March, Antonio Boparan was sentenced for causing the death of Cerys Edwards. She was only 11 months old when he hit her in 2008 and she was held to have died later from complications arising from her injuries. He got 18 months, having previously served 21 months for dangerous driving. Families have told me this afternoon of seeing people cheer in court because their sentence was so light and of people who did not go to jail at all. That matters for confidence in our justice system.

It is a long time since I practised law, and I know, from being around the courts, it is very difficult to make judgments on cases unless you have heard all the evidence, but I believe that in the most serious cases we ought to have life sentences available. As Mr Youens said to me, in the wrong hands a car is a lethal weapon.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate and moving speech, and I am pleased to see so many families here. She, like me, will have spent far too many hours in grieving families’ living rooms talking about these issues and their relatives taken away so swiftly. Does she agree that people who hire high-performance vehicles should be held liable if those vehicles that they give to others are then used in criminal acts of murder on our streets?

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We need to do many things to reform the law. We have had numerous petitions on increasing sentences for death by dangerous driving, and on imposing lifetime bans for people convicted of dangerous driving.

I had a letter from Amy O’Connor, whose brother, Andy, was killed on his way to the gym one morning. It took 15 days to find the van and the perpetrator because the van had been hidden. By that time, it was impossible to do drug or alcohol tests, and the only thing the driver could be charged with—she understands why—was leaving the scene of an accident. She very reasonably asks why do we not increase the sentence for people leaving the scene of an accident when they have caused death or serious injury.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech. Although we need a change in the law to make life sentences available for death by dangerous driving, I cannot understand why, in the worst cases of death by dangerous driving, the Crown Prosecution Service does not bring a charge of manslaughter, thereby giving the court the option of a life sentence for the worst types of offending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point on something that I will come to later. I understand why it is difficult for people to understand the law in this area, because we often punish the type of driving rather than the outcome. We used to have three offences—dangerous driving, careless driving and reckless driving—but the offence of dangerous driving as it was then was abolished under the Criminal Law Act 1977 because it was felt there was not sufficient distinction between dangerous driving and reckless driving. However, soon after, it appeared to people that the law was not punishing the most serious cases effectively. In fact, a review of the law by Dr Peter North in 1988 showed that many people thought that the law was not dealing with the most serious cases properly. Also, recklessness is obviously very difficult to prove, as it is subjective.

At the time, the Government were focused on dealing with drink-driving, to which I will return, because I think we can learn some lessons from it. The offence of causing death by dangerous driving was not introduced until the Road Traffic Act 1991. Even then, it was clear to many people that the law was still not being used effectively. There were widespread complaints that the Crown Prosecution Service was often charging people with the lesser offence of careless driving, because it felt that it was more likely to secure a conviction.

Attempts were made to address that, with advice to Crown prosecutors in 2007, and revised guidance in 2013 that set out some of the constituents of dangerous driving, such as excessive speed, racing, aggressive driving, ignoring traffic signs or lights, and failing to have regard for vulnerable pedestrians. Most of those elements were present in Violet-Grace’s case. There were also attempts to deal with people’s fears through changes to advice from the Sentencing Advisory Panel.

It is also fair to say that Governments of all colours tried to fill in the gaps in the law so that it operated properly. In the Road Safety Act 2006, the Labour Government introduced the offence of causing death by careless driving, and causing death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured. In the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the coalition Government introduced the offence of causing serious injury by careless driving. In the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, the offence of causing serious injury when driving while disqualified was introduced, punishable by four years’ imprisonment and a fine. Causing serious injury through careless driving was punishable by a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment.

All those measures were welcomed by road safety campaigners and had widespread support across the House, but they still did not deal with people’s fears that the worst offences were neither being dealt with nor sentenced appropriately, even though, in 2003, the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving had been increased from 10 years to 14 years. That matters because if the law is to work effectively people have to have confidence in it. It has to do three things: protect the innocent, punish the guilty and deter further offences. There was a widespread belief that that was not happening.

That belief was why, after a consultation, the current Government announced in October 2017 that they would increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life. At the time, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who was then a Justice Minister, said that the decision had been taken to reflect

“the seriousness of the worst cases, the anguish of the victims’ families, and maximum penalties for other serious offences such as manslaughter”.

He said that the change would be introduced when parliamentary time allowed. The same thing was said in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), who has also campaigned on this issue.

I must ask the Minister, why the delay? Everyone in Parliament knows that when we are not debating Brexit we have very little business. The proposed change could be dealt with swiftly, almost in a one-clause Bill. It would receive widespread support across the House and the support of the general public. I know that the Government want to deal with other issues, but why wait for a big Bill when we could get on and do this now? Surely we do not need to wait for someone else—God forbid, another child—to be killed before we act.

I would go further. In the Violet-Grace case, the car was stolen, which was clear evidence of criminal intent, and it had false numberplates, went through two red lights and was doing 83 mph. The driver had previous criminal convictions for burglary and failing to comply with a court order. He should have been charged with manslaughter—something the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) mentioned. This was a criminal act by a known criminal, with a complete disregard for other people’s lives. However, that is not what the petition asks for; it asks simply for life sentences to be made available for the offence.

The petition also asks for a minimum tariff of 15 years, which I think is a little more problematic. Generally, our law does not set minimum sentences; it sets maximum sentences and leaves it to the trial judge, who has heard all the evidence, to set the tariff. Clearly, if we went down that road there would have to be changes to the sentencing guidelines to reflect that. My fear about setting a minimum tariff is that it might have the opposite effect to what is intended: it might make juries more reluctant to convict in some cases, and lead to the situation that we have seen before of people being charged with careless driving instead of dangerous driving.

The same, or at least a similar, problem comes with calling for consecutive sentences. Normally in our law, sentences are served concurrently for convictions arising from the same incident, and consecutively if they arise from different incidents. I understand entirely why families want consecutive sentencing for offences when someone has been killed and someone else has been seriously injured, but my fear is that the tariffs set would be lower. Therefore, those proposing the change would not necessarily achieve what they want. However, that could be looked at and considered.

It is clear that we should get on with increasing the maximum sentence, but that by itself is not enough. I referred to how we tackled drink-driving in this country. We did two things: we not only brought in the breathalyser and ensured that serious sentences were available, but did a public education campaign that, in the end, changed people’s attitudes. It used to be quite socially acceptable to knock back a load of pints and get behind the wheel of a car. It no longer is. I am not saying that that does not happen, but it is no longer socially acceptable.

We need to do those two things. Mr and Mrs Youens are already doing their part by speaking at speed awareness courses to alert drivers to the damage that they can do. We need to do our part as politicians and introduce a proper public education campaign, because the aim in the end is surely not to have lots of people serving life sentences; it is to deter them from committing the offence in the first place and to save people’s lives. Will the Government please now get on with that?

I know that the Government are looking to include other provisions in a road safety Bill, dealing with such things as cycling. Those measures are worthy in themselves, but they are delaying action on something that many of us believe needs action now. The Government would have the support of the public and widespread support among all parties in the House, and such action would rebuild confidence in the law and recognise the campaigning of bereaved families. Most importantly, it might save lives—and surely saving even one life makes this worth doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. They have raised a number of issues about road safety, changing the culture and the treatment of victims. However, there is one thing on which we all agree, and that is the need to increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving to life. The Minister says that he cannot give us a timetable for that at the moment, and he wants us—rightly—to work together on getting it through, but I say to him that it is the Government who have to introduce a Bill. This is in the Government’s hands. If they introduced a short Bill simply to raise the maximum sentence, it could go through the House in a day, I am convinced. If the Government tried to include in it other things or, heaven forbid, to make it what the Clerks call a Christmas tree Bill—one on which the Government could hang anything—there would clearly be amendments tabled to it.

I urge the Minister to show the relatives of victims not words, but action. Bring forward the Bill and bring it forward soon, and it will have a clear, unimpeded passage through the House, I am certain. That is what people want to hear from him; that is what needs to be done. If he has been given no timescale for this, he needs to go and have a word with the Government’s business managers and get a timetable. We can all agree that that needs to be done and it needs to be done swiftly. That is no less than the relatives of victims deserve and no more than most people in today’s debate have asked for. For heaven’s sake, let us just get on and do it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 236952 relating to dangerous driving.