My friend's killer gets sentenced...

[benb]

It's not manslaughter.

What makes you so sure?

 

[Crankarm]

Complain to the Attorney General on the leniency of this sentence especially given that Powell was found to be lying through her teeth. Had there not been CCTV footage I bet she would have pleaded NOT GUILTY!!!! What a lowlife b1tch.

 

[Crankarm]

It's not manslaughter.

It could be manslaugher on the grounds that her driving was so grossly negligent that it was criminal. But you are right that it was not murder ....... unless she intended to take the cyclist out by crashing into her .

 

[Crankarm]

Not me - it's what the law stats.

Source/Citation Lee?

 

[benb]

It's not manslaughter.

Under English law, where a person causes death through extreme carelessness or incompetence, gross negligence is required. While the specifics of negligence may vary from one jurisdiction to another, it is generally defined as failure to exercise a reasonable level of precaution given the circumstances and so may include both acts and omissions. The defendants in such cases are often people carrying out jobs that require special skills or care, such as doctors, teachers, police or prison officers, or electricians, who fail to meet the standard which could be expected from a reasonable person of the same profession and cause death. In R v Bateman 1925 Cr. App R. 8 the Court of Criminal Appeal held that gross negligence manslaughter involved the following elements:
the defendant owed a duty to the deceased to take care;
the defendant breached this duty;
the breach caused the death of the deceased; and
the defendant's negligence was gross, that is, it showed such a disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime and deserve punishment.

The House of Lords in Seymour 1983 2 AC 493 sought to identify the mens rea for "motor manslaughter" (negligently causing death when driving a motor vehicle). Reference was made to Caldwell 1982 AC 341 and Lawrence 1982 AC 510 which held that a person was reckless if:
he did an act which in fact created an obvious and serious risk of injury to the person or substantial damage to property; and
when he did the act he either had not given any thought to the possibility of there being any such risk or had recognised that there was some risk involved and had nonetheless gone on to do it.

The conclusion was that for motor manslaughter (and, by implication, for all cases of gross negligence), it was more appropriate to adopt this definition of recklessness. Consequently, if the defendant created an obvious and serious risk of causing physical injury to someone, there could be liability whether there was simple inadvertence or conscious risk-taking. It was no longer a defence to argue that the negligence had not been gross

(my bold) from Wikipedia

 

[iamanidiot]

Complain to the Attorney General on the leniency of this sentence especially given that Powell was found to be lying through her teeth. Had there not been CCTV footage I bet she would have pleaded NOT GUILTY!!!! What a lowlife b1tch.

And would have got an even more outrageously lenient sentence.

 

[madguern]

Very sad , my thoughts go out to the family and hope they get some closure.

 

[arallsopp]

Awful. Simply awful. Thoughts are with the family and friends.

 

[Crankarm]

(my bold) from Wikipedia

While your citation goes some way to explaining when negligence is so gross that it becomes manslaughter which I believe is still the case and would fit the circumstances of this case there have been a number of recent clarifications in criminal law on Caldwell and Cunningham recklessness (the former was an objective test and latter subjective IIRC). But I think it is still basically the case that where there is a duty of care between parties and that duty is breached by one party in a fashion so grossly negligent that the breach becomes criminal and actionable as manslaughter.

 

[Yellow Fang]

"Driver Kylee Powell, who had passed her test just weeks earlier..."
Well, that was part of the problem, inexperience. My driving, as a young driver, was terrible. I probably should have had my license withdrawn, but I got away without hurting anyone. I suspect there is a feeling of 'There by the grace of God go I' among a lot of jurors.

When the police arrived at the scene, Powell told them the cyclist had swerved out in front of her at the last minute, which the camera footage showed was not the case.
When she was interviewed the following day after being arrested she replied ‘no comment’ to questions.

I'm not sure this is as bad as it sounds. After traumatic events where you don't remember things clearly, you have a tendency to remember it the way you'd prefer it. As for saying 'no comment', when you're in that much trouble, I would not say anything to the police without having a solicitor present, having talked with them first.


Mind you, I got convicted of Actual Bodily Harm a dozen years ago, through recklessness when I lost my temper in a bar. I got 160 hours community service and had to pay £500 compensation. All the victim suffered (in comparison) was gash in the forehead requiring four stitches.

 

[karan733]

It's not manslaughter.

Nothing personal against you Lee, but you can call a shoot a doodie all day and all night, its still a shoot.

You can argue about the whys and wherefores all day long, but when its all boiled down, shes killed someone by driving a car into them. Whether its murder, manslaughter, careless driving, being distracted, whatever - person A is dead, person B killed her.

Hope she is resting in peace

 

[joebingo]

So that's the second time in 2 days that a killer has been given a pithy community order (https://www.cyclechat.net/). I don't care if she's distraught for the rest of her f****ng life, these things happen if you don't pay attention while driving a car which you only finished learning to drive a few weeks earlier. Pay the price.

If you faced a manslaughter charge for causing death on the roads by dangerous driving/driving without due care and attention, I reckon deaths like this would clear up hugely. Obviously some are unavoidable, but in a situation like this, there is nobody to blame but the driver of the car. Why is a lapse in concentration grounds to not imprison someone?

"Oh, I was just playing with my knife in the street, I looked at a nissan dealership, when I looked back, I saw that I'd stabbed someone." - I don't think that would hold up in court, do you?

 

[Crankarm]

Powell pleaded guilty to a charge of causing death by careless driving, so presumably the local CPS didn't think there was a realistic prospect of a causing death by reckless or dangerous driving prosecution succeeding, let alone a more serious manslaughter one.

 

[joebingo]

Why is there a difference between careless driving and reckless driving? Surely at the speeds a car can travel, they're the exact same thing?

It just seems preposterous that so many CPS's and judges seem to view causing death warrants a more lenient sentence than Yellow Fang got for lacerating someone's face.

 

[Davywalnuts]

This is such another terrible loss of an innocent life.

I really have such little faith in the judicial system and until a presidence is made, nothing will change. Either me or anyone else cycling can just be snuffed out just like that and our lives will go in vain with no justice served, just so depressing.