3 months for hit and run killer ... WTF?
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Soldato
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Best fully star out that sweary before you get a telling off.D18241 said:
Regards to manslaughter that can't be used as there was never any intention to harm, but the laws to need a re-jig to address situations such as this.
Why should he be punished harder?GSXRMovistar said:I understand that he wasn't done for dangerous driving and that in situations such as this is could have even been a pedestrians fault (ie running out into the road) but the fact still stands that if he wasn’t breaking the law and driving without insurance/license then he wouldn’t have been in this position and therefore he should be automatically punished harder for a death that directly relates to him driving unlawfully, otherwise why in hell do any of us bother to follow the laws of this country.
He was most likely driving within the confides of the law, i.e. not recklessly and not speeding. The child most likely stepped out onto the road. Whether it had been an illegal immigrant or whether it had been your own mother would have made no difference--the end result would be the same: child hit and killed.
His crimes were:
Using stolen property;
Leaving the scene of a crime;
Driving with no tax/insurance;
Driving with no drivers licence.
If someone hits a kid who just stepped out onto the road and left the road user with no time to react, does it matter if the guy was driving illegally or or not? No. His legalities and whether he should be driving or not wouldn't have changed the outcome. It could quite as easily have been an old lady driving her Nissan Micra down the road who mowed down the kid when the kid stepped out into traffic.
Therefore, as mad as you are, he is not guilty of murder. Ask yourself this: you're driving down the road doing 28.5 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. All of a sudden, a meter away, a little kid steps out onto the road. You can't react in time and so you mow her down. How is that your fault? Whether you had tax/insurance/drivers licence or not is irrelevant, what is relevant is the fact that you weren't driving dangerously when the kid stepped out in front of you and got hit.
D18241 said:
Where did it say he was speeding? You have no idea what the circumstances were - the article says:
"Levi Bleasdale was hit by a stolen VW Golf as she crossed a road with her mother in Burnley on 10 September."
You must know what most people are like when crossing roads, whether or not they have kids - the number of people I've had to slam the brakes on for when they've just strolled out across the road without looking is insane. So, how do you know that it wasn't entirely their fault? The jury found him guilty of careless driving, not dangerous driving, so he obviously wasn't driving recklessly.
He should be punished for driving without a license/insurance, which he has been (the driving ban). He should be punished for failing to stop and failing to report, which he has been (the three months in prison). What else do you want?
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Cueball said:
Correct this would not be my fault
Yes it is, because if I didn’t have any of these then there’s no way I’d be on the road driving and this death would have been avoided.Cueball said:
I don't care if he is an illegal immigrant or a high standing pillar of the community, he had NO right to be on the road and fact is if he abided by the law he would not have been there and he would not have hit that girl.
All of us who cough up hundreds/thousands of pounds each year for insurance/tax etc have to pay for scum like this and the costs they generate, 12 weeks in prison doesn’t deter these people from breaking the law, my personal opinion is he should be punished harder.
You have take responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
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Did he steal a car?D18241 said:
It doesn't say anywhere that he stole the car - in fact, it seems to give the impression that he didn't. That'll be why he wasn't tried for it, then.
It's hard to know what to make of this. I do think that the sentence should have been more like three years, but only because I think driving without a license and insurance are serious crimes. I accept that in the UK the courts don't jail people for those things, so in that respect his sentence may well be 'correct' in that sense.
Do the courts not understand that when sentences for having no license and insurance are so pathetic, it acts as no deterrent to people doing that. If you got a mandatory three years in jail for your first offence then it would make at least some people think twice. (the ultimate blame for this lies with the government as they could force the courts to get tough.. never happen though 'cos we might need to build sufficient prisons and that would cost money)
Do the courts not understand that when sentences for having no license and insurance are so pathetic, it acts as no deterrent to people doing that. If you got a mandatory three years in jail for your first offence then it would make at least some people think twice. (the ultimate blame for this lies with the government as they could force the courts to get tough.. never happen though 'cos we might need to build sufficient prisons and that would cost money)
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My first instinct is to agree with you, but I'd like to read a bit more about it before making a judgement - for all I know there could be a good reason why the punishment is generally so small.dirtydog said:
Am I right in thinking that a five-year ban and a three month jail sentence are unusually high for the crimes this guy committed?
robmiller said:
I have been driving a good decade longer than you, I also spent 3 years as a driver/courier and I can't recall the last time I had to "slam the brakes on" for a pedestrian.
Perhaps you're driving far too fast as the other alternatives are you live in an area where pedestrians are peculiarly reckless roadcrossers or you aren't paying enough attention to the roads.
People walking out onto roads happens all the time in cities. I was walking with a colleague around London, and she just walked straight into the path of a van - had I not stopped her, he would have hit her. Talking about it afterwards, she has no perception of vehicle speed due to her never driving, nor got a license.
Pedestrains can be as much to blame as the driver, if not more so in some cases...
Pedestrains can be as much to blame as the driver, if not more so in some cases...
Once for real and once cos I had the classic kids ball come bouncing out from behind some parked cars and with visions of a kid coming running out I braked hard needlessly as it turned out - BTW this was my driving test and I passed. Driving for 21 years.dirtydog said:
I was just wondering that when I read it. I guess he didn't steal it and simply got/bought it from someone else.Arcade Fire said:
Also, I'd guess that part of the reason he got a small sentence (other than the fact that he commited neither murder nor theft, despite what you'd initially think), is because he turned himself in and pleaded guilty. I imagine that shaved some time off any sentence he'd get.
The only comfort I can get from this whole sorry story is that I hope he gets a right royal beating whilst inside. I doubt your run of the mill con is going to look too kindly on killing a toddler in such a manner.
Personally I feel a 25 years minimum sentence without parole is appropriate.
Personally I feel a 25 years minimum sentence without parole is appropriate.