SHEIKH’S ‘DUTIES’ SHOULDN’T TRUMP JUSTICE
THE family of a deceased recently retired railway signalling manager from Hertfordshire, Charles Roberts, are suing Sheikh Hassan Nasser Al-Thani for £200,000 in damages.
It made the news last week, probably because the Qatari is a member of the country’s hugely wealthy ruling family. This particular Al-Thani had mowed Roberts down in London’s Mayfair while travelling at an estimated 53 mph — almost twice the speed limit — in his purple 2,440kg Rolls-Royce Wraith.
The 66-year-old didn’t stand a chance. Of course, this was not in the least deliberate: Al-Thani braked as Roberts crossed the road. But the judge in the case observed: ‘I am entirely satisfied that if you had been driving at or within the speed limit, his death would have been avoided.’
Clear enough. But I am puzzled by two further aspects of the case. Most reports say that Al-Thani was convicted of causing ‘death by careless driving’.
Yet the criminal guidelines indicate that fatalities caused when a driver has been speeding fall into the more serious category of ‘death by dangerous driving’ — when the sentences are considerably higher. The lowest permissible, according to official sentencing rules, is a two-year jail sentence.
Anyway, as the Qatari was convicted of the lesser crime of causing death by ‘careless driving’, the judge gave him a sentence of just eight months — and then declared that he would not have to serve the term: it was ‘suspended’.
Why? According to The Times: ‘The Old Bailey was told that a spell in jail would put him at a higher risk from health conditions and prevent him from fulfilling official duties for Qatar.’
What on earth do his ‘official duties’ have to do with justice? Can anyone get their sentence suspended because jail will interfere with their ‘duties’? As for the Sheikh’s health, it transpires that his ‘condition’ is ‘morbid obesity’. I would have thought that a prison diet would actually have done him some good.
But this business leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.