‘KILLER DRIVER’S SENTENCE WAS AN INSULT TO KAYDEN’S FAMILY’
MP calls for an end to ‘lighter’ charges
THE sentencing of a driver who killed a seven-year-old boy was ‘an affront to justice’, an MP has told Parliament.
Stoke-on-trent North MP Ruth Smeeth called for tougher sentences for drivers who kill after raising the case of Kayden Dunn, from Sneyd Green, during a House of Commons debate.
Shakeeb Zamir was sentenced to 12 months in prison after admitting to causing Kayden’s death by careless driving, in April 2016.
Zamir was driving without insurance and over the speed limit. Following the collision he drove from the scene.
After his release, the 22-year-old, of Pleydell Street, Sneyd Green, then received a 12-week sentence after he breached his driving ban.
Ms Smeeth criticised the decision to charge Zamir with the ‘lighter charge’ of causing death by careless driving, telling MPS that in this case the punishment did not fit the crime.
Ms Smeeth said: “In October 2017, the Government announced that the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving would be raised from 14 years to life imprisonment.
“That was the right decision and I welcome it. But it came too late for Kayden’s family and it will fail to deliver justice in future unless prosecutors pursue charges that fit the crime and do not reduce such heinous acts to the lighter charge of death by careless driving.
“We will not forget that the man who stole Kayden’s life has been allowed to go with his own without serving an adequate punishment for his crime and without showing any genuine remorse for his actions. His sentence was an affront to justice and an insult to a suffering family.
“It is too late to change that, too late to bring Kayden back and too late to hold those who took him from us to account, but it is not too late to learn the lessons of this case and to apply them to try to ensure that no other family will have to suffer the way that this family has.”
Ms Smeeth also criticised the probation service for delays in organising a meeting between Kayden’s family and Zamir.
She added: “For the family to see the perpetrator treated so leniently and to be made to feel insecure in their own community is to have salt rubbed into that wound in the cruellest way”
But Ms Smeeth praised Kayden’s family, including his mum Tonie Cleverley, and the Sneyd Green community for the way they responded to the tragedy, raising thousands for a memorial fund. Some of the money has been used to donate parcels to other crisis-hit families.
Justice minister Rory Stewart thanked Ms Smeeth for bringing Kayden’s case to the Commons, which he described as ‘genuinely horrifying’.
He said a meeting had now taken place with the probation service, and that officials would reach out to the family again.
Mr Stewart told the Commons the Ministry of Justice must take ‘practical steps’ to learn from Kayden’s case.
He said: “By courageously working with her MP to bring this case to Parliament, Kayden’s mother has made several things happen. First, to learn from Kayden’s tragic death, we must improve road safety in any way we can. Secondly, we have to look at our justice system and think about the ways in which that system is fair and whether it addresses the question of the impact of a person’s act on a victim, and balances that with questions of loss and remorse.”