Victims of Road Traffic Offences: Criminal Justice System

James Wild Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) on securing this debate, which is of great importance to my North West Norfolk constituents and to Members across the House. I want to focus particularly on the sentence for causing death by dangerous driving. In the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, Parliament legislated to increase the maximum sentence for this crime from 14 years to life imprisonment, which we did to reflect the devastation that such crimes inflict. The sentencing guidelines issued for that change have a range for the category A offence—the most serious offence —from eight to 18 years.

Are those guidelines effective, and are judges following them? In the case of my constituent, Summer Mace, I do not think so. I confirm that it is not an active case. Three members of Summer’s family—her mother, sister and stepfather—were killed by a dangerous driver. Having had an Adjournment debate on this case, I return to it to highlight the devastating impact on Summer, her family and her friends, and the inadequate sentence imposed. The judge rightly classed this as a category A offence, owing to a prolonged, persistent and deliberate course of very bad driving. There were six aggravating factors in the case: three people were killed; greatly excessive speed was used; the driver knew he was deprived of sufficient sleep; he had consumed drugs above the legal limit; he had previous convictions for motoring offences; and he was on police bail for a driving offence at the time, breaking the curfew to commit the crime. The only mitigating factor was a letter he sent to the court—not even to the family.

It is unacceptable that after a guilty plea was taken into account, he was sentenced to only 10 and a half years for three separate counts of causing death by dangerous driving. He could be out in seven years. The question that the family and I want to ask is what is required for a large sentence to be imposed? Those sentencing guidelines took effect in June last year. When more data is available, I hope the Minister and the Lord Chancellor will consider very carefully the impact on sentencing that those guidelines have had, and whether judges are actually imposing the sentences that this House and the House of Lords legislated for. I hope that the Lord Chancellor uses his power to formally request that the sentencing guidelines are reviewed.

The other point I want to raise is around disqualification, as touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. In my constituent’s case, a ban for a period of only eight years was considered appropriate, extended to 15 years to take account of the time the offender will be in prison. Again, that strikes me as far too lenient. Courts can impose lifetime bans, and RoadPeace is campaigning for them to be applied. The House of Commons Library reports that disqualification for life only happened in four cases in the year ending June 2023, out of more than 116,000 who were disqualified. The Government should consider whether it should become a mandatory element in some cases because, as my hon. Friend said, driving is a privilege and not a right. The Sentencing Council will shortly consult on new overarching guidelines for driving disqualification, and I encourage everyone with an interest in this topic to respond to that consultation.

I end by noting the frequency of driving offence cases. I was struck by the statistics that, in the case of driving under the influence of drink or drugs, 79% of cases result in a fine, with only 1% resulting in a custodial sentence, and 99% of people disqualified for a year to less than two years for that offence. Does that reflect the seriousness of the crime? Does it create a deterrent effect? I do not think so. We need to apply a robust approach, including prison sentences and lengthy bans, to send a message that these are serious crimes with serious consequences.