Manslaughter means the person didn't intend to kill. I accept that the woman who pushed her didn't have the intention to kill her.
Crimes resulting in death are the highest tier. The only time I'd expect a sentence of no jail time if a reasonable person's actions couldn't avoid killing someone. I knew someone who was driving along below the speed limit and a kid ran out point blank in front of the car. I can understand no jail time in that situation.
But to not have any jail time in this case is amazing. I wouldn't push an old person like this. But if I did lash out at anyone I'd expect to be jailed.
I suspect the reason the sentence was suspended is because of the capacity issues in the prison system.
I'd release all non violent and non sexual offenders from prison and put them on community sentences, and drug courses.
It would be interesting to see the criminal records of people in prison. I'm not sure if we've ever seen that information breakdown?
So you'd make it an offense if you killed someone but it couldn't be avoided.
That would instantly make most cases where someone died in a traffic accident something where one or more people would have to go to prison, and that includes your mate because if the "kid ran out point blank in front of the car" then unless he ran out from behind a something that completely obscured the kid then your mate could be argued to have been going to fast even if below the speed limit as you are meant to "drive to the conditions" and technically that could be argued to mean going no faster than you can react if something unexpected happens, which means in some places you'd have to be going at 5-10 miles an hour even if there was no other traffic (due to the likes of parked cars blocking the view of the pavements).
What you are arguing is that basically if someone honks their horn and it causes the 90 year old on the pavement next to them to have a heart attack the honker should be considered for jail, and this is basically the scenario the original death by careless driving legislation could have resulted in (IIRC in the end the lawyers and judges managed to make the politicians realise exactly how ******** stupid it would have been to set the bar that low). As the action of honking the horn was directly linked to the death and if the person had not honked the horn the death would not have occurred (can you see how silly such "black and white" rules are?).
In the case of the woman you were getting het up about I can see exactly why she got the sentence she did, even if I don't agree with it fully.
She shouted at the older women - that seems to have started it, not in her favour.
The old lady started the physical side of things by hitting her with the bag - in her favour she did not start the physical side of the incident.
She then pushed the old lady away - A bit of a mix, it was continuing the physical interaction but with a low level of force that would not normally be expected to result in serious injury even with an older person, and it would normally be considered a reasonable response/self defence (someone hits you, you push them away which is better than hitting back), however it was against an older person and there was the potential to just step away.
There was obviously no premeditation in the incident - in her favour.
There was no weapons used - in her favour.
There was no continuation (she didn't batter the old lady once she was down unlike what some people seem to think is ok for "self defence when attacked") - in her favour.
So you've got a death that was obviously non intentional, after an action that you could only normally expect to result in someone staggering/stepping backwards.
There is a reason we have judges making sentencing decisions based on the individual circumstances of a case once they have heard the case and a guilty verdict has been announced rather than have a one size fits all approach (which is routinely a horrendous miscarriage of the spirit of the law when it's applied*), or worse the readers of the daily junk who after reading an extremely short and usually deliberately misleading article think they know better than people that have heard the actual evidence not just a couple of lines.
*As for example pulling past a stop line safely to allow for an ambulance to get past you, it's the right thing to do in the spirit of the law and being a good citizen and driver, it's technically against the law with IIRC no actual defence laid down in the law so you can get an automatic fine with little chance of appealing it as it's an FPN and normally you can't appeal to an actual judge just the local council etc. Drunk driving is similar but if you get in front of a judge or magistrate who understands the law and the circumstances may find find you guilty of the offence but have a way of negating any penalty in very specific circumstances (to uphold the spirit of the law as a whole). IIRC there was a case in the 90's or it might even have been earlier where a woman was tried for drink driving for taking her husband to the hospital, the court upon hearing they'd been camping with no intention of driving, they'd had some drinks and she'd only driven when her husband had an unplanned heart attack in order for her to get him to help, took the attitude she did the correct thing in her circumstances and entered an "Absolute discharge" on the record (guilty but no further action is needed - IE she only drove after drinking as it was the only option to save a life).