Suspended sentence for killing cyclist

magicbastarder

TheBoyConor wrote: »

There might not be precedent but lets examine it.

that's a no, so.

Time

detones wrote: »

We need to start locking up monsters like this fella .....

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/suspended-prison-term-for-driver-who-killed-cyclist-1.1316377

That case had some very obvious contributory negligence (no lights, no reflective gear, on the N2 in the dark) which the judge held was a major cause of the accident and so Instructed the jury they weren’t to find him guilty on the Dangerous driving charge.

That just left the leaving the scene and failing to report an accident charges. On their own (which is how they have to be considered) a suspended sentence was appropriate.

It’s hard to compare to the case at hand when the material facts are so different

Carlos Orange

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Separating a mother from her children is a very very serious thing and in my mind, is not acceptable unless she is a danger to her children.

Do you think mothers should never go to jail or that the children should go with them?

Time

psinno wrote: »

Do you think mothers should never go to jail or that the children should go with them?

I think the general consensus is that non-violent and non-repeat offenders are generally better off receiving non custodial sentences. Of course if someone commits a murder etc... then its unquestionable that a custodial sentence should be given. In this case what purpose would that serve?

It wasn't an intentional act, its not going to serve as a deterrent to others, there will be a massive and avoidable negative impact on her family, and no doubt both her and her children have suffered huge emotional trauma from the accident itself. Given all those factors there would be nothing to be gained from a custodial sentence.

TheBoyConor

To be honest, I think that mothers of young children should never go to jail unless the reason for it is that they present a real and serious risk to the safety of the children.

And of all the cases of mothers possibly being sentence, I think a case such as this where it involves a tragic accident is the least justifiable case for imprisonment there could possibly be.

One family is already unintentionally destroyed. Why should the state intentionally destroy a second family.

And let there be no doubt that this whole affair is already going to have a huge impact on those small children.

Have a read of this so maybe you can appreciate the devastation that imprisoning a mother can cause.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mothers-prison-thousands-of-children-being-brought-up-by-their-grandparents-8153540.html

Carlos Orange

Time wrote: »

Of course if someone commits a murder etc... then its unquestionable that a custodial sentence should be given. In this case what purpose would that serve?

If it was unquestionable TheBoyConor wouldn't have twice posted saying they shouldn't unless they are a threat to the children.

TheBoyConor

Thank you.

CramCycle

TheBoyConor wrote: »

The driving ban of around 5 years is right in my view. We must remember that she has small children that need to go to school, extracurricular activties etc. As above, taking away her licence for too long would cause a profound negative impact on the lives of the children, which is not fair. Realistically, it is likely that she will appeal the ban at a later date and it will be commuted.

I agree, in principle, with most of your post, except this one. There is no benefit to anyone in society, even the family of the deceased cyclist for her to go to prison.

This point thought I disagree with, wholeheartedly. A lifetime ban is the only option here. It may be awkward, but it would be a hell of a punishment. She is not out in a rural community, she is in the suburbs of Cork. There is a bus every 30 minutes, only a 5 minute walk from here house into the city centre.

A lifetime ban from motoring, was the appropriate sentence here. The only reason it would have been a poor one was the appeal would have went in her favour and she would have had it reduced to 5 or similar.

She is lucky that she has that possibility, a driving ban would be appropriate and a daily reminder to friends and family of the need to pay attention while driving, it would have had positive effects through her network of family and friends but would not have destroyed her life.

eeeee

Someone's status as a woman and a mother should have absolutely no mitigating influence in the event of them killing someone, which is what this woman did. Absolutely none. Being a mother doesn't and never should indemnify you in the event of a crime. Any suggestion of same is utterly ridiculous and bizarre.

She killed another person. Why are her children somehow more deserving of a parent than those of the man she killed?

I don't think a custodial sentence should be handed down, but having killed someone driving a car she should never, ever have a license again. There should also have been extensive (years worth) community service also.
She took away the ability to bring her children to after school activities when she killed a person behind the wheel. There is no excuse for that in these circumstances. She was 100% at fault and admitted as much. It's not like she made a little mistake, she killed someone.

Lumen

TheBoyConor wrote: »

To be honest, I think that mothers of young children should never go to jail unless the reason for it is that they present a real and serious risk to the safety of the children.

Sexist nonsense.

droidus

Time wrote: »

It wasn't an intentional act, its not going to serve as a deterrent to others...

This is true, its called negligence, resulting effectively in manslaughter.

There are many instances where negligence causes severe harm to others and tougher sentencing in cases like these could in fact result in people thinking twice before they commit similarly negligent acts.

TheBoyConor

I disagree. A lifetime driving ban is an excessivly punitive penalty for what was a tragic accident.
The woman has enough to deal with already having to come to terms with what her carelessness has caused. I would even say that given she has small children that probably often need to be brought places, a 5 year ban is quite harsh.

There is going to be consequences to the children from this ban.

Whether we like it or not, a car is absolutely essential for the running of daily life for many many families. Take away the car and the family will be thrown into chaos.

I would suggest the more imaginitive approach to sentencing that is not about punishment or fines or prison, but seeks to use the remoserful guilty party as a means of deterrent - ie my previous suggestion that a court could order her to do community service in the form of making her go around the county giving presentations to young adults about the importance of keeping alert on the road and the consequences of carelessness.
Surely that way some good can actually come out of all of this in that case.

droidus

Look at the tweet I posted above. There is an epidemic of vehicular manslaughter caused by 'carelessness', its getting worse, and the perpetrators face virtually no consequences for their actions. The justice system must clamp down or lives will continue to be needlessly lost.

eeeee

It was not a tragic accident, she killed a person through her own actions.
There is no logical justification for allowing her back behind the wheel again.

She forwent her right to drive a car when she killed someone with it completely through her own actions.

TheBoyConor

Prison and fines are not the answer. No-body goes out in the morning and thinks "oh i better do/not do x,y or z because I might end up in prison".

I think education is the key to road safety. And the more I think about it I feel that making those who commit vehicular manslaughter as you call it go around telling the story of how their carelessness destroyed lives and families should be encouraged.
Told in a classroom to 6th years by the actual person who killed a person with their car (as opposed to a Garda or a random RSA worker), it is hard hitting and will make people listen. The traditional fines & prison could then be imposed if the guilty person refused this sort of community service.

whiskeyman

TheBoyConor wrote: »

I think community service would be appropriate. At least in that way, something good can come of it all. Perhaps she should be made go around to TY and 5th, 6th year students in schools and explain what happened and how important it is to be attentive on the road. Especially since young people are glued to their phones, often while driving.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

You always hear from the grieving family in adverts etc... lets hear from the other side, those that cause the accident.
Why?
She was a mother just driving home... not drink driving... not speeding... someone so many can relate to. This is key for it to work.
Instead of a custodial sentence, the judge should encourage or force them to be involved in such a programme / safety campaigns.
Obviously we dont want them to become 'hate figures', but more to be 'I'm just like you... until that moment happened - it could happen to you to'.
If anything, it may help their own recovery (no denying this), knowing other lives maybe spared from their involvement.

Time

droidus wrote: »

This is true, its called negligence, resulting effectively in manslaughter.

There are many instances where negligence causes severe harm to others and tougher sentencing in cases like these could in fact result in people thinking twice before they commit similarly negligent acts.

Well from a legal perspective it's nothing like manslaughter, and courts ultimately are concerned with objective legal principles.

I don't believe that a custodial sentence would have any impact on the publics awareness or behaviour on the basis that accidents like these are so exceptional, people never think it will happen to them. Thats just human nature

Also by its very nature negligence is an unintentional act, so to say that people would think twice before commenting a negligent act doesn't really make sense.

TheBoyConor

Exactly true. A custodial sentence will not raise public awareness about road safety. By its very nature, nothing can come of a custodial sentence.

As I and whiskeyman said, in situations like this the courts should aim to turn such a sad occurence around and try at least get some positives out of it - for example, the guilty telling their story publicly . It could tie in with the RSA's crashed lives series or similar stuff.

eeeee

whiskeyman wrote: »

I think this is a fantastic idea.

You always hear from the grieving family in adverts etc... let hear from the other side, those that cause the accident.
why?
She was a mother just driving home... not drink driving... not speeding... someone so many can relate to. This is key for it to work.
Instead of a custodial sentence, the judge should encourage or force them to be involved in such a programme to be involved in such safety campaigns.
Obviously we dont want them to become 'hate figures', but more to be 'I'm just like you... until that moment happened - it could happen to you to'.

Until that moment happened? It could happen to anyone? It can only happen to people who are dangerously negligent so and incompetent behind the wheel. There's nothing, nothing relatable in all that. Her circumstances have nothing to do with the outcome of her lethal driving. There is no hierarchy of relatability for murderous drivers. Certainly I believe (I hope so anyway!) she never set out to kill someone, in fairness, but she did.

She killed a person through her own negligence. It's was not a'moment'. It was not an accident. She was grossly negligent and consequently lethal through her own actions. I have absolutely no sympathy for her. I'm sure it's traumatising for her to have killed him through her own fault, but she didn't have to kill him. If she had been aware and competent she wouldn't have done such a dangerous thing behind the wheel and taken a completely innocent life.

whiskeyman

nee wrote: »

Until that moment happened? It could happen to anyone? It can only happen to people who are dangerously negligent so and incompetent behind the wheel. There's nothing, nothing relatable in all that. Her circumstances have nothing to do with the outcome of her lethal driving. There is no hierarchy of relatability for murderous drivers. Certainly I believe (I hope so anyway!) she never set out to kill someone, in fairness, but she did.

She killed a person through her own negligence. It's was not a'moment'. It was not an accident. She was grossly negligent and consequently lethal through her own actions. I have absolutely no sympathy for her. I'm sure it's traumatising for her to have killed him through her own fault, but she didn't have to kill him. If she had been aware and competent she wouldn't have done such a dangerous thing behind the wheel and taken a completely innocent life.

What I mean is that she didn't realise the danger involved.
We've successfully attached a stigma with drink driving, mobile phones (slowly).
Other levels of distracted driving need to come to the fore of peoples minds so they understand how dangerous driving is and can be... with fatal and or life changing consequences.

I think you'll find that a huge number of drivers on the road today could relate to her situation by taking their mind off their driving.

This is the problem.

TheBoyConor

You're over the top nee. Murderous drivers? Do you know what murder means? The ISIS lads driving trucks into people are murderous drivers, this woman is not.

It was a lapse in concentration and a moment of carelessness that resulted in a terrible accident.

I think it is very very relatable. She was a normal mother, with small children and a husband going about her usual family daily business when her negligence resulted in this accident. Even her negligence is relatable - attending to her childin the car. Tbh, i'd say the 99.9% of parents have done something similar, taking their eyes off the road to look at their small child in the back for a second. No person is 100% attentive to the road 100% of the time - not her, not the man she killed, nor you nor I, nor the judge who sentenced her. We are all only human.

Corca Baiscinn

Whether we like it or not, a car is absolutely essential for the running of daily life for many many families. Take away the car and the family will be thrown into chaos

I admire your concern for this woman's children and your wish that punishment for her shouln't relult in collateral damage to them but above reasoning for saying 5 years may be too long is absurd. The family will just have to manage their lives in such a way that they can do without. the family may well have a second car/driver, relatives or neighbours and there's public transport.

I don't understand myself why the charge was ony carelesss driving. I know the burden of proof for dangerous driving is a lot higher but at the moment this woman turned around to remov the toy packaging and took her eyes off the road to this layperson she was driving dangerously.

She killed another person. Why are her children somehow more deserving of a parent than those of the man she killed?

I disagree with this post from Nee, it's not that her children are more deserving of a parent, but by jailing her the state would be intentionally depriving them of a parent whereas the state had no role in depriving the other family of theirs unless you count the earlier posts re the designation of the road or faiure to build a safe alternative.

I would be in favour of a longer ban and will be very disappoointed if it's reduced on appeal.

eeeee

Just to reiterate, I'm not and never was in favour of a custodial sentence.

This woman killed a person through her own wilful carelessness. There is no excuse for it. It's not a terrible accident. There was a cause. Her negligence killed a man. A father, brother, son and friend. If she had the care, competence and consideration to not to do what she did he would be alive today.

That anyone can relate to it is deeply, deeply troubling and indicative of the terrible driving standards out there today. Every single day I see people driving with their phones on, wobbling between lanes, drifting between curb and middle of the road with their faces directed at the little rectangle glowing within. That's just one example of it. This is not acceptable, or relatable any more than having a feed of drink and driving home is. That it even might be brings up a disturbing culture of dangerous driving acceptance which needs to be tackled with harsher sentences.

She killed someone due to her wilful negligence. She should never, ever be let in a position to do that again. She has proven that she is incapable of killing people when driving. The victim doesn't get a second chance to head home to his family on his bike, why does she deserve the chance to kill again? All the remorse in the world doesn't bring him back, or change what she did. There are consequences to these actions.

The leniency of the ban sends a message of acceptance towards what she did that day. This is completely and utterly unacceptable.

Carlos Orange

whiskeyman wrote: »

I think you'll find that a huge number of drivers on the road today could relate to her situation by taking their mind off their driving.

This is the problem.

Turning around is hardly the same as taking your mind off driving. It isn't a lapse in concentration (despite testimony in court saying it was).

Lemming

I disagree with everyone saying there is no merit in sending her to prison. I think it would serve as a benefit to society at large to see that there are consequences besides the inconvenience of having ones driving license revoked. I'm not for one moment suggesting that she have the key thrown away or any such retribution nonsense like that, but she didn't just have a momentary lapse in concentration. She didn't just look down to adjust the radio or some such. She turned her attention 180 degrees at somewhere north of 50mph/80kph for several seconds, not one or two, to deal with removing a tag on a toy. Conor would have us all believe that she is no danger to her children; I would point out that she is an exceptional danger to her children given what she did; that cyclist could easily have been a large brick wall ... but her children got lucky. And so did she. At the cost of someone else's life.

All for the tag on a toy that couldn't wait to be removed.

Edit: just to add, at 50mph her car was travelling at 73ft per second whilst she was not looking. At 60mph (94kph, so 100kph is above 60 again), her car was travelling at 88 ft per second.

Time

nee wrote: »

Just to reiterate, I'm not and never was in favour of a custodial sentence.

This woman killed a person through her own wilful carelessness. There is no excuse for it. It's not a terrible accident. There was a cause. Her negligence killed a man. A father, brother, son and friend. If she had the care, competence and consideration to not to do what she did he would be alive today.

That anyone can relate to it is deeply, deeply troubling and indicative of the terrible driving standards out there today. Every single day I see people driving with their phones on, wobbling between lanes, drifting between curb and middle of the road with their faces directed at the little rectangle glowing within. That's just one example of it. This is not acceptable, or relatable any more than having a feed of drink and driving home is. That it even might be brings up a disturbing culture of dangerous driving acceptance which needs to be tackled with harsher sentences.

She killed someone due to her wilful negligence. She should never, ever be let in a position to do that again. She has proven that she is incapable of killing people when driving. The victim doesn't get a second chance to head home to his family on his bike, why does she deserve the chance to kill again? All the remorse in the world doesn't bring him back, or change what she did. There are consequences to these actions.

The leniency of the ban sends a message of acceptance towards what she did that day. This is completely and utterly unacceptable.

Sentences have to be proportionate the the crime committed, and whether you agree with it or not the ban was the appropriate one.

Heres a recent Court of Appeal case that reduced a lifetime ban to 40 years. If you look at that (it's very short) you'll see that if 40 years is the appropriate sentence for the litany of offences listed, then 5 years is proportionate in this instance.

In the case we're discussing, the judge was obliged to take into consideration the mitigating facts such as no history of offending, the low chances of reoffending, guilty plea, abscene of intent, obvious remorse etc... what sentence would you suggest in light of the Court of Appeal ruling and the mitigating factors present here?

boombang

I really think we should not call this an accident, but rather an incident. This was not something that occurred at random. It was caused by the driver's failure to pay attention. It was her fault.

tomasrojo

I get by without a car (*) in a suburban context. It's not purgatorial.

A lifetime ban would be fair(**). She's made it abundantly clear she has atrocious judgement, and I really doubt that will change.

(**) The sentence handed out is in line with usual sentencing, but usual sentencing is far too chary of driving bans. Not being able to drive is appropriate for people who are really, really bad at driving.

EDIT: (*)I have two children.

Kaisr Sose

TheBoyConor wrote: »

I disagree. A lifetime driving ban is an excessivly punitive penalty for what was a tragic accident.
The woman has enough to deal with already having to come to terms with what her carelessness has caused. I would even say that given she has small children that probably often need to be brought places, a 5 year ban is quite harsh.

There is going to be consequences to the children from this ban.

Whether we like it or not, a car is absolutely essential for the running of daily life for many many families. Take away the car and the family will be thrown into chaos.

I would suggest the more imaginitive approach to sentencing that is not about punishment or fines or prison, but seeks to use the remoserful guilty party as a means of deterrent - ie my previous suggestion that a court could order her to do community service in the form of making her go around the county giving presentations to young adults about the importance of keeping alert on the road and the consequences of carelessness.
Surely that way some good can actually come out of all of this in that case.

Or perhaps a large chunk of community service in lieu of jail?
A driver re-education programme?

While you are saying the judge should be concerned about the impact of a custodial sentence on her kids development, she did not think to care about how her poor driving may impact on her kids? What if she pulled out in front of a truck? Kid paralyzed? Killed over a tag from a toy – what then?

She had to show remorse to have any chance of avoiding jail. She would be advised that and is just playing the system for as light a sentence as possible.

It worked, but the DPP should appeal this. It does not establish a base line/effective deterrent for dangerous driving. Being female and having kids should not mean no jail. Look at the guy that went to jail for the incident in Kilbarrack. He fell asleep at the wheel. Someone is dead. If it was a mother, should they get non-custodial?

Time

tomasrojo wrote: »

I get by without a car (*) in a suburban context. It's not purgatorial.

A lifetime ban would be fair(**). She's made it abundantly clear she has atrocious judgement, and I really doubt that will change.

(**) The sentence handed out is in line with usual sentencing, but usual sentencing is far too chary of driving bans. Not being able to drive is appropriate for people who are really, really bad at driving.

EDIT: (*)I have two children.

It seems that you're basing your assessment on the outcome, and not looking at the wider context. How else could you justify a lifetime punishment?

I don't believe that a single instance of poor judgement, no matter the outcome means that a person has poor judgement generally. We all make unintentional mistakes, and some of them unfortunately can have tragic outcomes, but we learn from them.

For all you know she could have always been an excellent driver up until that one lapse, so you can't really say she's really really bad at driving in general.

Have you ever had a lapse of concentration on the bike? I know i have, and hit the ground because of it. Does that mean i'm really really bad at cycling? No. Should i be banned from cycling incase i hurt myself or someone else? of course not.