Greg Mulholland: Justice overdue for families shattered by killer drivers

Just to sit and talk with them – and to see and feel their profound grief – has been deeply upsetting. To think about what they have gone through and to contemplate how their lives have been scarred and their hearts filled with a sense of loss scarcely brings home what they have gone through and will continue to endure.

I have had two such cases, sitting with the families involved and doing my best to support them as they try to make sense of another individual’s criminal recklessness behind the wheel of an ordinary motor car.

Jamie Still, from Otley, was 16 years old when he was killed as he crossed a road with friends on New Year’s Eve 2010. His young life, with so much hope and promise, was senselessly cut short by a drunk driver who was travelling at 50mph in a 30mph town centre street and was twice the drink drive limit.

A year after Jamie’s death, on New Year’s Day 2012, David and Dorothy Metcalf, of Cookridge, were killed on the Stanningley bypass in Leeds. The driver was a Moldovan national who was in the UK illegally and had twice the permitted level of alcohol in his system. This much loved couple were rear ended by a car that was speeding at 100mph. They stood no chance and a family suddenly lost beloved parents and grandparents who were just starting to look forward to a long and happy retirement.

These two cases both shattered the start of a new year for two families in my constituency and highlight the injustice and inconsistency in the current sentencing of dangerous drivers. Of course, no change to the law or prosecution and sentencing guidelines will ensure that people don’t drive in a disgracefully criminal way that endangers other people’s lives; but it will make it more likely that they will be properly charged and sentenced for doing so.

In a remarkable act of both courage and sisterly love, Jamie’s younger sister Rebecca decided to set up the Jamie Still Campaign. The campaign seeks to call for changes to the law; changes
that would not help her and Jamie’s mother Karen’s profound sense of both grief and injustice, but might just stop other families having to feel the latter in the same way.

I have been working with them and others, including the national road safety charity Brake, to call for much needed yet commonsense changes that would give families like Jamie Still’s and David and Dorothy Metcalf’s a much greater chance of the justice that they so clearly deserve.

The first is to impose a bail condition in cases in which someone is charged with death by dangerous or careless driving that automatically suspends their driving licence. New prosecution and sentencing guidelines are needed so that decisions are more consistent and appropriate so maximum sentences are imposed on those who kill when driving without a licence, insurance or a right to be in the country.

I also believe that driving bans should start when the perpetrator can actually drive again, instead of the absurdity of the ban being served while they are in prison and therefore unable to drive.

I have also backed calls to abolish the crime of causing death by careless driving, with
all such crimes then being regarded as causing death by dangerous driving when the driving is always clearly 
dangerous and has caused a death. This is because too many are charged with the lesser offence which has a maximum sentence of just over a third of that of causing death by dangerous driving.

I would also like to see families of the victims of careless or dangerous driving made eligible for compensation from the Criminal Justice Compensation Fund, as families of victims of murder and manslaughter
are.

These changes are essential to guaranteeing justice for victims of dangerous driving and their families as they are currently being let down by the sentencing guidelines.

The tragic and unnecessary deaths of Jamie Still and David and Dorothy Metcalf have highlighted the injustice in the present system and I hope 
that the review that is currently under way will bring about essential changes in the law 
and sentencing on dangerous driving.

The Still and Metcalf families have shown remarkable strength and courage during this awful time and they, and other families of victims of dangerous driving, deserve justice.

Greg Mulholland is the Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West.