Dangerous Driving

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

I defer to my hon. Friend’s knowledge, given that he is a lawyer who, I am sure, has encountered plenty of cases of dangerous driving, and death by dangerous driving, in his time. All I know is that we and the Sentencing Council need to give the courts more tools to deal with these cases. The judge who presided over Lovell’s trial said that he wished that he could have imposed a tougher sentence. As it was, he could impose a sentence of no more than 10 years and six months, but if the necessary power had been vested in him by Parliament, he would have imposed that tougher sentence. It is our responsibility as legislators to make our voice heard to the Minister and the Sentencing Council in order to bring about a change in the law.

I am sure that, if we put ourselves in the shoes of the families involved, each one of us would be not only heartbroken by the loss of a relative, but aggrieved by the nature of the sentences handed down by the courts. The fact that the judge in the Lovell case wanted to impose a heavier sentence but was unable to do so simply rubs salt in the wounds.

A full year has passed since the deaths of Ross and Clare Simons, but the devastation remains. As Kelly Woodruff, Ross’s sister, explained:

“What the perpetrators don’t realise is the devastation they cause—people’s lives, like ours, are scarred forever. We will never live the way we should be living, all because of that man, my future has been stolen.”

During this period of unspeakable grief, however, Kelly has also commented:

“Over this year we’ve realised we are not alone. So many people have contacted us who have gone through the same thing all over the country.

The sentences some people have received for dangerous driving are awful—12 months for killing someone.”

Indeed, recent figures relating to convictions for death by dangerous driving offences speak for themselves. In 2011, 153 of the 408 people convicted of causing death or bodily harm while driving dangerously, or under the influence of drink or drugs, avoided jail altogether. Five were given fines, and 63 were given suspended prison sentences.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to Ross and Clare Simons and sending condolences to their family. It appears that the perpetrator of that offence did not care at all that he was causing a risk to others through his actions. If we are to deter such people in future, should it not be possible to impose longer custodial sentences before people reach the point of killing someone? That would be the real deterrent, given that simply caring about other people does not cross their radar.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend is right. Lovell showed no remorse at his trial, just as he had showed no remorse following the offences that had led to his previous 69 convictions and his being banned for life from driving.

A deterrent is a limited option. It may be unlikely that people who think in that way will ever be deterred from getting into a car, driving at speed, and then killing someone. What we need is the opportunity to give the police and the courts the power to ensure that such people are off the road in the first place, and cannot commit crimes. The tragedy for Ross and Clare Simons was that Nicholas Lovell should never have been in that car to start with. He was not allowed to be in a car, but that did not prevent him from getting into one. Rather than being on the road, he should have been in jail serving time for the previous crimes that he had committed so relentlessly. We need to deal with that problem if we are to prevent further tragedies.

Of the 255 people who went to prison in 2011, 21 were given less than six months in jail, 104 were jailed for under two years, and just 37—one in seven of all those who were convicted of death by dangerous driving—were given prison sentences of more than five years. It is clear that the severity of the sentencing for those who cause death by dangerous driving is a national issue that needs to be addressed.