Killer drivers will get life sentences under new plans
DRIVERS who kill someone in the most serious cases of dangerous and careless driving will face life in prison under Government plans to tackle dangerous driving.
Jail terms in cases involving speeding, street racing or mobile phones will be raised from 14 years to life, making the offence equivalent to manslaughter, the Ministry of Justice said.
Justice Minister Dominic Raab said: “We’ve taken a long, hard look at driving sentences.”
The new life sentence could apply to those who cause a fatality while driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or by speeding, racing or using a mobile phone at the wheel.
This move follows criticism that sentences for those convicted of causing road deaths were too lenient.
The new measures are being introduced after a Government consultation about penalties for drivingrelated deaths and serious injuries.
Carried out in December 2016, the consultation generated 9,000 responses, with 70% thinking the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving should be increased to life.
Mr Raab said the Government had considered the “anguish” caused to victims’ families and the maximum penalties for other serious offences, such as manslaughter.
He added: “We intend to introduce life sentences of imprisonment for those who wreck lives by driving dangerously, drunk or high on drugs.” The Government will also create a new offence of causing injury by careless driving, with the maximum sentence still to be decided.
He said the changes would “fill a gap in the law” and reflect the seriousness of the injuries suffered by victims in this category of case.
According to the Ministry of Justice, 157 people were sentenced for causing death by dangerous driving in 2016.
Figures from the Department for Transport show the average sentence is four years.
Jackie Taylor’s daughter Sophie was 22 when she died in August 2016 after being chased through Cardiff by drivers Michael Wheeler and Melissa Pesticcio before her car crashed into a wall.
Wheeler, 23, from Harlech Road, was jailed for seven and a half years after he pleaded guilty to causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving.
His former girlfriend Pesticcio, 24, from Marshfield Road, was jailed for six and a half years after she was convicted by a jury.
Mrs Taylor compared the sentences of her daughter’s killer to the current maximum term of 14 years, and said she believed judges would rarely impose a top life sentence.
She said she did not believe the new terms would act as much of a deterrent if judges could not sentence at the top of the range and thinks the sentencing guidelines should be reviewed.
Wheeler was disqualified from driving for four years and Pesticcio for three years.
Mrs Taylor said she believed those convicted of causing death by dangerous or careless driving should not be allowed to get behind the wheel again.
She added: “They have devastated our whole family. We have got this for a lifetime – and to think they could eventually get back on the road.”
Newly-qualified bus driver Jay Stolzenberg was last month given a 27-week jail term, suspended for two years, after he admitted causing the death of a pensioner by driving carelessly. The 25-year-old from Hartshorn Terrace in Caerau was on his first day at work when he killed 76-year-old grandmother-of-three Glenys Thomas in the incident which happened near a supermarket.
Ryan Reardon was jailed in July for eight years and eight months after he admitted causing the death of Christine Rowe by driving dangerously while under the influence of cocaine.
Reardon, 34, from Beech Grove in Oakdale, Caerphilly, was disqualified from driving for 10 years after the judge described his driving as “appalling”. In another case, “boy racer” Dean Collins who killed his partner’s five-year-old son and caused horrific injuries to four others, was jailed in April for six years.
The 23-year-old, from Coleford Drive in St Mellons, had been found guilty by a jury of causing the death of Joseph Smith by dangerous driving.
Alan Davies, 35, who had previously been before the courts for more than 50 motoring offences, was jailed in February for four years.
Davies, from Caerau Road in Maesteg, admitted causing the death of 80-year-old Tydfil Jenkins by driving carelessly and under the influence of drugs.