Consistency in court?

[ferret fur]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-11545177

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11544291

Both on the BBC today.

Does Not Compute

 

[HLaB]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...umbria-11545177

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-fife-11544291

Both on the BBC today.

Does Not Compute

The latter case is particualy sickening IMO when you read about the incident and court case in previous threads. IIRC the lying barsteward claimed that the cyclist was cycling on the wrong side of the road but when the reconstructed the events it was him, he was speeding on the wrong side of the road

 

[campbellab]

'record included convictions for drink-driving, driving while disqualified and speeding.'

Then they bother to increase his driving ban like he cares?

 

[2Loose]

That is so wrong. The guy with 'previous' and lied in court gets effectively let off (ok, a lengthened driving ban that he has been proven to ignore anyway), and the other guy got 5 years for the same result and main offence.

WTF.

 

[gavintc]

I am sorry to state that 'judgement' is so much a personal issue. There are guidelines, but a judge has a fair amount of latitude. To some extent this is good, it allows opinion, discretion and many other factors to be considered, but it also allows such wide variances in punishment.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Not excusing either offender or offering any comment on the judges concerned but it looks like they involve different offences.

The first case (Cumbria) was Death by Dangerous Driving. The Scottish case, for reasons not apparent in the BBC report, was prosecuted as Death by Careless Driving.

Don't know if the law/definitions of the two offences differ between England and Scotland.

 

[StuartG]

I don't want to be pedantic but these courts were under two very different jurisdictions and offences. Hence why expect consistency?

Reports seldom tell the whole story including factors that will affect the guidelines on sentencing in each jurisdiction. If we do want consistency - a prior first step might be merging the jurisdictions. Indeed are the Scots a bit too lenient anyway? I do remember a surprisingly light sentence recently on a guy with previous who killed a cyclist at excessive speed and tried to lie his way out of it ...