Van driver jailed for using van as weapon

[RichardPH]

Have some got their blinkers on maybe?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -down.html

Be nice if they didn't get the driver and cyclist names confused in the captions . . . .

My thoughts too..

[Vladimir]

Young Blonde and Attractive......... call me cynical?

can't agree with the "attractive" part of that. Blonde, yes, but badly bleached?! Young, well, it won't last forever!

[thelawnet]

Have some got their blinkers on maybe?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -down.html

Don't really see that this is comparable. In that case the guy smashed a bus into a cyclist, at considerable speed, which the whole world has watched on camera, and death was a likely outcome.

In this horse case there is no video footage, evidently the van driver reversed towards the horse, but whether there was any contact is not really clear.

You just have to compare the outcomes:

'broken leg and fractured wrist '
'two weeks in hospital and had grueling operations to repair his left knee and wrist following the incident.'
'Doctors inserted a 25cm metal plate in his left leg and bolted the bones in his left wrist together.'

convicted of dangerous driving and GBH

with
"bruising to [the horse's] fetlock"
and
"sore arm, shoulders and neck, caused by the force with which she had to hold on to the horse."

convicted of dangerous driving only.

I don't think you can compare what sounds like a very minor sort of injury to the horse, and none to the rider, with a series of operations and a 25cm metal plate, and unquestionable video evidence with the word of the victim only.

The sentencing is clearly not balanced. If the horse road rager got 10 months in prison with no real damage done, how can it be that for causing very serious injuries you only get 17 months? The DD in the bus case is much worse, and then you've got GBH on top of that.

[thelawnet]

Actually here are the Dangerous Driving sentencing guidelines

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sent ... s_driving/

Max Sentence is 2 years, min disqualification is 1 year.
The bus driver got 17 months prison + 30 months driving ban.
The horse road rager got 10 months prison + 12 months ban.

The relevant guideline in the case of the horse seems to be this:

""Road rage" cases involving furious driving with intent to cause fear or possible injury, but no accident, consumption of alcohol or injury - six to 12 months imprisonment."

So this is on the higher end of that.

Basically speaking getting the maximum sentence evidently depends on a whole range of aggravating factors, past convictions, and so on. So 2 years for dangerous driving alone is very rare.

However, he was charged with s20 - GBH - alongside DD, and here the sentences are much higher.

"D pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and to causing grievous bodily harm. During a police chase in which D drove dangerously he collided with a taxi, gravely injuring the driver. It was entirely appropriate for the Judge to have considered that D had, in effect, used his car as a guided missile. A sentence of 21 months for dangerous driving concurrent to 4 years for s20 was not excessive."

"The offender should be sentenced subject to the maximum of 5 years imprisonment for the s20 offence, and not subject to the 2 year maximum for dangerous driving "

Looking at the GBH guidelines http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sent ... dily_harm/ in the case of serious injury with higher culpability, the starting point is 3 years, so it is evident that he was given a very light sentence, while the horse road rager got one that was on the high side.

[RichardPH]

Have some got their blinkers on maybe?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -down.html

Don't really see that this is comparable. In that case the guy smashed a bus into a cyclist, at considerable speed, which the whole world has watched on camera, and death was a likely outcome.

In this horse case there is no video footage, evidently the van driver reversed towards the horse, but whether there was any contact is not really clear.

You just have to compare the outcomes:

'broken leg and fractured wrist '
'two weeks in hospital and had grueling operations to repair his left knee and wrist following the incident.'
'Doctors inserted a 25cm metal plate in his left leg and bolted the bones in his left wrist together.'

convicted of dangerous driving and GBH

with
"bruising to [the horse's] fetlock"
and
"sore arm, shoulders and neck, caused by the force with which she had to hold on to the horse."

convicted of dangerous driving only.

I don't think you can compare what sounds like a very minor sort of injury to the horse, and none to the rider, with a series of operations and a 25cm metal plate, and unquestionable video evidence with the word of the victim only.

The sentencing is clearly not balanced. If the horse road rager got 10 months in prison with no real damage done, how can it be that for causing very serious injuries you only get 17 months? The DD in the bus case is much worse, and then you've got GBH on top of that.

Simple.

The bus driver and the cyclist had an 'altercation' prior to the incident in the video, and the cyclist was continuing to attempt to hold up the bus by riding further across the carriageway in front of it, forcing the driver to move more and more towards the central barrier, he was playing with fire and he got burnt frankly, a lesson in picking your fights.

Contrasting this, the attack on the girl on the horse was unprovoked. The horse was bruised, this backs up the girls story, I wasn't entirely joking in an earlier post saying that the horse was a witness because it quite evidently was.

The bus driver was more heavily penalised both in length and nature of sentence and deservedly so, but to pretend the cyclist was a totally innocent party is 'blinkered'.

[meic]

The van driver and the horse rider also had an 'altercation' before the incident.

I guess that she was playing with fire and only got slightly singed.

Why would people assume that she was, unlike the cyclist, a totally innocent party. So why was the van driver so enraged????

[thelawnet]

Simple.

The bus driver and the cyclist had an 'altercation' prior to the incident in the video, and the cyclist was continuing to attempt to hold up the bus by riding further across the carriageway in front of it, forcing the driver to move more and more towards the central barrier, he was playing with fire and he got burnt frankly, a lesson in picking your fights.

While that might be what provoked his behaviour, I'm not sure anything you describe amounts to a discount off sentencing on the part of the motorist.

Contrasting this, the attack on the girl on the horse was unprovoked. The horse was bruised, this backs up the girls story, I wasn't entirely joking in an earlier post saying that the horse was a witness because it quite evidently was.

I'm not sure if the bruising backs up the girl's story or not. It sounds like a very minor sort of issue, I don't know anything about horses, but I found this post here about a horse with fetlock bruising. http://www.horseadvice.com/horse/messages/4/16087.html It doesn't seem to me that it proves any kind of impact, as the horse could have incurred this apparently very minor injury (presumably not apparent without examination by a vet?) just through a stressed response to the van reversing towards it or the rider.

Evidently there was some sort of confrontation and the van drove towards the horse, which is bad, but not really comparable with ramming a cyclist with a bus at speed.

The bus driver was more heavily penalised both in length and nature of sentence and deservedly so, but to pretend the cyclist was a totally innocent party is 'blinkered'.

Tha depends what you mean by innocent. He was certainly innocent of a crime, and he did not deserve to be battered almost to death. Whether he could have avoided the situation is I think as relevant to sentencing policy as a woman's choice of dress is to the sentence of her rapist, i.e. it's not. Could you reduce the risk of being rape by wearing more modest clothing? Quite possibly. Could you reduce the risk of being attacked in a road rage incident by not responding to any perceived bad driving. Likewise. Does that affect either sentence? No.

As for the horse attack being unprovoked clearly it was not. She gestured at the driver, had she not done so there would have been no confrontation. After this he stopped, and further words were exchanged. These are not recorded but judging by typical road rage confrontations it's more likely to be 'what the f are you doing' than 'Would you mind awfully slowing down a little'

Of course people get in confrontations on the road all the time, and giving someone the finger, or rebuking them for their driving certainly doesn't create any kind of justification for either driving a van at them or battering them with a 10-tonne bus.

You should note the mitigating factors for DD:

a good driving record;
the absence of previous convictions;
a timely plea of guilty;
genuine shock or remorse - in cases where death results (which may be greater if the victim is either a close relation or a friend);
the offender's age (but only in cases where lack of driving experience has contributed to the commission of the offence), and
The fact that the offender has also been seriously injured as a result of the accident caused by the dangerous driving.

and that they do not include 'the cyclist rode in front of me m'lud' or 'he told me off about my driving'

Quite simply while getting into altercations increases the likelihood that someone will attack you, it doesn't provide any legal justification for doing so. Anyone on the road should be able to cope with a bit of criticism without resorting to using their vehicle as a weapon, but for people in positions of responsibility, such as bus drivers, that is especially true.