|
Westminster Hall Debate - Hit and Run Sentencing
Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): It is a pleasure and a privilege to speak in this extremely important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis) on securing it. I praise him for the compassion and concern that he has shown not only today, but ever since the traumatic death of Kyle McDermott was brought to his attention. I also praise him for the passion and concern that he has shown in speaking about his constituents and his cousin Stephen and I pay tribute to him for the way in which he did so. It is difficult to bring stories about those close to home to the House, although it must mean so much to the hon. Gentleman and his family to be able to do so. Finally, I pay tribute to him for his passion and concern in seeking justice for Kyle, Stephen and his community in respect of these hit-and-run incidents, which we see throughout the country.
It is important to look at the case of Christopher Collins in some detail because it highlights the issues that hon. Members have brought to our attention today. Speaking of the case, Jools Townsend, the head of education at Brake in Huddersfield, quite properly said:
“It is shocking to see such a paltry sentence being handed down to a driver who has committed such a devastating crime. Knocking down a young boy and leaving him for dead is a truly callous act—five months in jail and a five-year ban as punishment simply does not bring the driver to justice, nor send out the right message.”
That is well said.
The case of Christopher Collins also highlights the great disparity in sentencing, which all hon. Members have discussed. If one looks in detail at the sentence of five months’ imprisonment, one sees that it did not result from the failure to stop and report an accident or, indeed, from driving without due care and attention, because the penalty for that is not a custodial sentence. The sentence resulted from Collins’s admitting to having perverted the course of justice, although there is concern that it was not adequate even in that respect. That, however, is the only reason why there was a custodial sentence.
Collins was arrested a week after the accident, after a member of the public spotted his damaged van parked outside a colleague’s house in Mexborough. Even then, Collins lied to the police, claiming that he was not the driver. It was only 11 months later that he finally owned up to having been behind the wheel, giving rise to the charge of perverting the course of justice.
The concern is that failing to stop and report an accident is hardly given any regard. Many of us think that seeking to evade justice after a hit-and-run accident is not far short of perverting the course of justice; indeed, in certain circumstances, the two are tantamount or indistinguishable in terms of their consequences for victims. It is therefore important to bring the Collins case to everyone’s attention to highlight the disparity in current legislation.
The hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough has been raising his concerns for some time and did so again in the petition of 29 October, for which I pay tribute to him. He has also asked parliamentary questions, in which he has been supported by other hon. Members who have asked questions and sought debates. In that respect, I should note that I am chairman of the all-party group on road safety, which has certainly raised the issue, along with other groups.
My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mr. Fraser) raised the issue in October and has also tabled parliamentary questions. Today, he highlighted the disparity between the 14-year maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving or while under the influence of drugs or drink and the maximum for failing to stop and report an accident, which is six months in prison. He also raised concerns about drink-driving incidents and people seeking to evade justice by avoiding an early reading of their proportion of alcohol to breath. He properly made the point that that is an incentive to leave the scene of the crime.
The right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) made similar points and raised the historical ambiguity in relation to road traffic legislation. He spoke with great passion and concern about Gillian Curran and the loss to her family and the constituency. As I understand it from a recent speech by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the charging policy that the right hon. Gentleman raised is being particularly considered with the aim of avoiding the situation that I have seen in courts where I have practised in Enfield and Haringey. The easy option is often followed, in that people go for careless driving rather than dangerous driving. I am encouraged by recent remarks that I have heard and documents that I have seen.
Mr. Bone: In Northamptonshire, the CPS takes a different line now. The director reviews every case in which there is a death as a result of driving to ensure that the service is prosecuting correctly. That would be good practice throughout the country.
Mr. Burrowes: Yes. Perhaps we can hear from the Minister whether that practice could be adopted elsewhere. I was encouraged by the Director of Public Prosecutions saying that the CPS is taking the issue very seriously and is not now looking at the easy option. We need to see whether that is being followed through out in the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) rightly raised the tragic loss of Alexine Melnik. That loss, together with that of Kyle McDermott and others, will not be in vain. That is the point of this debate: such deaths should not be in vain but should lead to changes. They have led to changes through the Road Safety Act 2006, but the concern today is that there are still significant gaps. As described by my hon. Friend, hit and run is a horrible, horrendous offence. We should not be dealing with the lower end of sentencing. We should be able to give the courts the full range of options so that they can deal appropriately with the particular circumstances of a failure to stop.
All hon. Members have tragic cases in our constituencies on which we campaign. Soon after I was elected, Abigail Moore, who was aged 25 and from Hadley Wood, tragically lost her life as a result of a hit and run accident in Hackney. There was also the case of Livia Galli-Atkinson. My predecessor as MP for Enfield, Southgate, Stephen Twigg, passionately championed the concerns of the Galli-Atkinson family. Livia’s death was not the result of a hit and run accident but was caused by dangerous driving. A paltry fine of £2,000 was imposed following that incident on 12 January 1998. It is the efforts of the Galli-Atkinson family, the Melnik family, the McDermott family and others that bring us here to seek to ensure that road safety is taken extremely seriously and is not the poor relation when it comes to criminal justice.
Let us consider the passage of the Road Safety Bill, which is now on the statute book. There was a missed opportunity in that respect. I sought to table an amendment to create a new offence that would properly recognise the importance of allowing failure to stop offences to be dealt with on an either-way basis—either in the magistrates court or in the Crown court. Sadly, sufficient time was not given to the measure in Committee and on Report to allow consideration of what hon. Members are saying today.
However, this cause is being championed. I mentioned the Galli-Atkinson family, who have instigated the Livia award, which commends the service provided by police officers investigating these crimes on a daily basis. It is designed to commend exceptional service for road crash victims and for the cause of justice. We met last month to give awards to many officers in the Metropolitan police for their efforts. At that gathering, it was significant that, time and again, senior police officers, while accepting their awards for dedicated service, mentioned their concern that hit and run incidents and failing to stop offences were not being given due regard and attracting the penalties that they merited. Lord Simon, as well as myself and others, pointed out the need to tackle such offences and deal with them properly.
The Livia award panel, on which were senior Crown prosecutors, former chiefs of the operational command unit of the Metropolitan police, senior solicitors, journalists and myself, made representations to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), on tackling the matter and the need for a proper penalty for failing to stop at the scene of an accident. His response was similar to that made in the Committee on the Road Safety Act 2006. He wrote:
“Deliberately fleeing the scene of an accident to avoid prosecution is a cowardly and deplorable act that must not be allowed to go unpunished. However, it would be equally wrong to assume that because a driver did not stop they must be deliberately seeking to evade prosecution. The driver may be in shock and it would not seem sensible for the law to deter him subsequently from reporting the incident and taking responsibility for it. Equally, the driver's fault may be minimal or non-existent.”
The example that has been given—the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) might give a similar one today—is of a lorry driver who goes along a narrow road and does not realise that he has caused an accident, and goes on his way without knowledge. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport wrote:
“In such cases a bad driving offence would not apply and the current penalty of up to six months in prison for failing to stop would seem to be about right.”
There may well be circumstances in which it is right, but there are many others, as we have heard, in which it is plainly wrong and an injustice. We need to ensure that there are options on the statute book and that we are not limited to a summary-only offence, so that it can be dealt with as an either-way matter and therefore at the Crown court. I do not need to go into different sentencing levels, as the point has been well made by hon. Members.
Sadly, I did not have the opportunity during the passage of the Road Safety Act to go through current legislation to see whether the situation of people who do not know that they have caused an accident is covered. Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 properly requires a driver to stop their vehicle if a road traffic accident has occurred and there has been either personal injury or damage. That duty on the driver applies only if he knows that the accident has occurred. In the case of Harding v. Price in 1948, it was established that the prosecution must prove that the driver knew of the accident or ought reasonably to have known it. In 1970, the case of Hansen v. Powellinvolved a lorry driver. Convictions were quashed because the driver’s knowledge was a necessary ingredient of an offence. Case law and statute therefore already make that point and deal with the Minister’s concerns, which have previously been voiced, about those who do not realise that they have been involved in an accident.
We need to deal with the horrendous cases in which the driver plainly knew and sought to evade justice. We have all seen cases in our constituencies, and I have seen them in court, in which the offender deliberately did not stop and, regardless of their motives, may well have denied the victim urgent medical assistance, which might have led to their dying on the streets. In other cases, they may prevent the prosecution from properly identifying them. There are ways and means of doing that: number plates might be cloned through the internet or in other ways, which is not currently barred. They may have other ingenious ways of avoiding identification, but they may well do it simply by driving off and then evading justice, perhaps through the road traffic offences of having no insurance or licence. The offences that they are avoiding may be on a minor scale, or much more serious if they have alcohol in their system or there are other serious driving offences involved.
We heard in the Livia award process from police officers who do sterling work in serving justice and victims that, time and time again, they are prevented from dealing speedily and properly with the concern of victims and their families by people hitting and running and then trying to flee justice. The time that it takes the police to identify the offender and bring them to justice is of great concern to them. They, and hon. Members, are concerned that there should be a proper deterrent so that people know that, if they fail to stop, they may well face a sanction that is not just six months but could be increased.
I would ask the Minister particularly to address the issue of guidance. Yes, the guidance to magistrates makes it clear that failure to stop is now an imprisonable offence under the 1991 legislation, but sentences of imprisonment are rarely imposed for failure to stop. The court and the prosecution look to the bad driving offences rather than at the failure to stop and the merits of the offence. It should attract a severe penalty in certain circumstances. Guidance indicates that it will invariably be dealt with by way of a financial penalty and penalty points rather than any custodial sentence. It is important that that is addressed urgently.
It is also important that victims’ expectations are dealt with. They can be poorly managed. Brake made the point that there is often a disparity between sentencing and expectations. Victims see a sentence of five months and think that that is far too short for the loss of their loved one. It is impossible to compensate for that loss through a sentence, but nevertheless it is important to manage those expectations well and, not least, to have a clear and honest sentence. When a sentence of imprisonment is imposed, it is important that victims and their families know that it will be served. If a sentence of five months is given but the person comes out after a matter of weeks, the families see that and do not understand it. It is important that when a sentence is imposed by the court the public know that it will be properly served. It is important that sentences are explained.
I invite the Minister to take up the question raised by the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough about the driving disqualification. Should it run at the time that the sentence is imposed, concurrently, so that people serve their ban in prison? That can mean that they come out and, soon after, are driving on the streets in the same community. That raises great concerns. Should the disqualification period begin after their release from prison?
The understandable point of a driving disqualification is to protect the public. Obviously, that does not make sense: how are the public protected by a driving qualification that has been served in prison? However, as I understand it, Court of Appeal guidance on disqualification periods, particularly lengthy ones, is on the side of offender rehabilitation. Once they have finished their term of imprisonment, the guidance considers disqualification for a lengthy period to be onerous. There is reference to considering a lesser disqualification period when it is allied to a sentence of imprisonment, in order to be on the side of rehabilitating an offender once they are in the community. It is important that the Minister give careful thought to the guidance that courts use when dealing with sentences for those who will receive a custodial sentence.
I want to give the Minister ample opportunity to reply to all the concerns raised by hon. Members. It is important to seek to plug the gap. I spoke to the Minister who took the Road Safety Bill through Parliament—the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman)—on the evening after the Livia award last year. He said that when the ink is hardly dry on the last Road Safety Act, everyone jumps up and down with extra measures for the next one. Nevertheless, the point was raised before and during the passage of the 2006 Act, and it will not go away. I know that hon. Members will not let it go away. It is important that we have answers to fill this important gap and deal with the ambiguity. For the sake of Kyle McDermott and all those others who have been mentioned today, I ask the Minister to respond in full.
|
|
