May: We’ll toughen up dangerous driving laws
MINISTERS are considering a major overhaul of dangerous driving laws amid concerns that sentences are too lenient, Theresa May said yesterday.
The Prime Minister was confronted by an MP who said there was ‘widespread public concern’ at soft sentences.
Labour’s Jim Dowd highlighted the case of ten- year- old Makayah McDermott, a child actor, who died with his aunt last week when a suspected stolen car ploughed into them in Penge, south-east London.
Mrs May told the Commons she knew of a similar case from her constituency, and said the Ministry of Justice was looking at reforms.
Road safety campaigners expressed anger this week when a van driver with eight previous convictions for using his phone at the wheel killed a cyclist after reading a text message. Christopher Gard, 30, was jailed for nine years after he ploughed into 48-year-old cyclist Lee Martin. The death occurred just weeks after magistrates let Gard keep his licence.
At present, the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years’ imprisonment. Some relatives of victims are demanding this be raised to bring it into line with the longest possible sentence for manslaughter, which is life in prison.
At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Lewisham West and Penge MP Mr Dowd raised the tragic deaths in his constituency last week. He said: ‘While other inquiries, including by the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, are being undertaken and the matter is now before the courts, I’ll say no matter about the specific case.
‘Other than to ask the Prime Minister if she is aware at the widespread public concern that the law on caus- ing death by dangerous driving is wholly inadequate? And will she undertake a review both of its suitability and its applicability as the courts actually enact it?’
Mrs May, who is MP for Maidenhead, indicated that the way the law worked was being re-examined.
She said: ‘I’m aware of the concern that there is about the law in relation to dangerous driving – I’ve had a particular case about the daughter of some of my constituents who was killed as a result of dangerous driving and they have raised concerns with me specifically about their case. And this is a matter that I believe the Justice Department is looking at.’
Some 122 people were found guilty of death by dangerous driving in 2015, with 114 given an immediate custodial sentence.
The Ministry of Justice said the average custodial sentence length for causing death by dangerous driving had gone up from 49 months in 2010 to 57 months in 2015.
A spokesman said: ‘We are currently considering the penalties for drivingrelated offences in order to find the best way forward. Sentencing is a matter for our independent judges, who make their decisions based on the facts of individual cases.’
Darrell Martin, the brother of killed cyclist Lee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the driver’s sentence was not enough, because he would be out in four and a half years. He added: ‘The issue for me is he shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place.
‘There were eight opportunities to stop the man from driving. People seem to think it’s a right to drive a car – surely it’s a privilege and if you can’t respect that privilege you should take the licence off him.’
But Tory MP Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, told the programme that the current sentencing regime was adequate.
He said: ‘We have to keep a sense of proportion with other offences.’
‘We are considering the penalties’