The Defence Brief

Behind this doors: trials defendants are excluded from attending A couple of years ago the government introduced a new system of bringing prosecutions in the magistrates’ court, called the Single Justice Procedure Notice (SJPN). This procedure allows the police to initiate prosecutions more speedily than under the old system and effectively allows trials to be held in which the defendant is almost deemed guilty from the start. It can only be used for non-imprisonable offences but that can include a surprising range of allegations, e.g. it was recently used to prosecute an HGV driver alleged to have knocked down a cyclist. This new procedure arises from an amendment made to section 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that allows for criminal proceedings to be instituted by the service of a written charge. Where a written charge is issued the prosecutor must at the same time issue either a requisition or a Single Justice Procedure Notice, which is a document that requires ...

Tomasz Kroker using his mobile phone at the wheel This week saw Tomasz Kroker sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for causing death by dangerous driving along with the calls for tougher sentences that usually accompany such distressing cases. Kroker had been driving his HGV along the A34 in Oxfordshire when it collided with a row of stationary vehicles that had stopped due to traffic ahead of them. Initially Kroker told him employer he had not been distracted by the radio or his telephone. In police interview, he answered no comment to all questions put to him at first. At some point, he told police that his brakes had failed suddenly. When the police showed him the dashcam footage from his lorry that showed him using his phone up until the very last second before impact Kroker admitted being distracted. Last week he entered a guilty plea to four counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one count of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. This week judge Mau...

Targeting distracted drivers I already have a great deal of experience dealing with breathalysers , maybe I’ll soon need to expand into “textalysers” if this plan from America takes off. New York law makers are looking to introduce “Evan’s Law” that would allow police to use devices at the roadside to see whether drivers have been texting while driving.  The name comes from Evan Lieberman who was killed in a car crash when Michael Fiddle claimed he fell asleep while driving – in the UK Fiddle would likely have been guilty of causing death by dangerous driving if he made an admission like that but in New York it seems that wasn’t enough to bring a charge against him as a grand jury refused to indict him.  The parents of Mr Lieberman felt there was more to the story than Mr Fiddle falling asleep and were able to force the release of Mr Fiddle’s telephone records, which showed he had been texting sometime earlier, although a judge said that had not been a factor in th...

Mr Bean's home made self-driving  (sort of)  car Because I run London Drink Driving Solicitor and people like to be clever, I am occasionally asked what the legal position is should self-driving cars be released for sale vis-à-vis drink driving.  I assume that a lot of people would like to be able to go out, get drunk and then travel home in their own car without putting themselves or anybody else in danger – nice thought, I like the idea too. What’s the legal position? First, section 5 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says that a person who drives or attempts to drive a motor vehicle on a road or other public place while the alcohol in the breath, blood or urine exceeds the drink driving limit commits an offence.  It also goes on to say that anybody who is in charge of a motor vehicle with alcohol above the drink driving limit commits an offence.  So, we have two offences, drink driving and being in charge. For the purposes of this exercise we’l...

I understand that the Government are considering introducing a new offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, which I suppose means I'm going to have to update the firm's website (again). As a fellow motorcyclist, I have sympathy for Darren Braund who was injured when a driver pulled in front of his motorbike causing him to collide with her car but looking at the description of the offence and the sentence I have my doubts whether this new offence would have made a difference for Mr Braund as it looks like the car driver was convicted of careless driving rather than dangerous driving, in which case the new offence wouldn't apply to her. Dangerous driving is defined as driving that falls far below the minimum acceptable standard expected of a competent and careful driver; and it must be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous. Whereas careless driving occurs when the way somebody drive falls below the mini...

The Government recently released its Strategic Framework for Road Safety , which looks at the causes of serious road accidents, identifies areas that need to be developed and introduces some sensible and not so sensible plans for driving offences. Fixed penalty notices The most talked about plan is the continuation of Tony Blair's policy of excluding the courts from the Criminal Justice System through the use of fixed penalty notices and effectively turning police officers into road-side prosecutors, judges and juries. The latest batch of fixed penalty notices will allow police officers to punish careless drivers with an on the spot fine.  The Framework gives two reasons for this change.  First: "... to make it more efficient and less time consuming for police to enforce." Sorry to any officers reading this, but if we render that sentence into plain English, it would appear that the Government are suggesting you are all too lazy to take cases to court.  The second ...

What I am about to say may well be controversial to some; however I think it is well worth saying: speed is no where near the main cause of accidents in the UK. It is worth taking the time to think about what we mean by the claim that "Speed Kills".  Do we mean that going very fast will kill you?  If so then that is demonstrably rubbish.  The fastest I have ever driven a car is 180MPH (at Silverstone race track before anybody suggests I would ever exceed a speed limit).  I have travelled at close to 600MPH and despite both I am still alive.  Others have gone much faster and lived to tell the tale.  So, speed itself is not a killer.  How then does speed kill?  Well, the culprit is not speed but inappropriate speed.  I accept that the warning "Inappropriate Speed Kills" may not have the same ring to it. The Institute of Advances Motorists has just released research on the various contributory causes of accidents and I have to say that the m...