Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Karl Turner Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

You would not be the first person to make that genuine mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker. I entirely forgive you for it, and thank you ever so much for calling me.

I rise to speak in support of new clause 14, and I thank the Minister and the Department for including it in the Bill. It seems like only yesterday when, on 27 January 2013, I received a telephone call and discovered that two of my constituents, Ross and Clare Simons, had been killed that evening while riding a tandem bike down Lower Hanham road in Kingswood. They had been struck by a driver who had been driving, in a police chase, at 70 mph in a 30 mph zone. Obviously, this was devastating for all the families, and when I went to the vigil a week later, I said to Ross’s father, Edwin Simons, that I would do everything in my power as the local Member of Parliament to stand up for the families and for victims. That is what this clause is about: making sure we send out a message that it is unacceptable to cause death by driving while disqualified. For people watching this debate it is simply common sense to say that people who kill through driving while disqualified should never have been in the car in the first place. People wondering why the law has never been toughened up will see that it makes perfect sense to introduce this new clause.

After that fateful day on 27 January 2013, I set up, with the families, the petition “Justice for Ross and Clare”, which called for far tougher penalties for disqualified drivers, especially those who kill by dangerous driving. The perpetrator, Nicholas Lovell, who went to jail, had 69 previous convictions, 11 of which were for driving offences, and he had been disqualified four times. We can only imagine the families’ grief when they found out in court that this person had not only taken away these innocent young lives but done so while he was disqualified. For more than a decade and a half, he had shown a complete disregard for the law.

Our petition gathered 15,000 signatures, and we took it to No.10 Downing street. As part of the campaign, I led the Backbench Business debate on 27 January 2014, which the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) mentioned, and 30 Members took part. It was clear then, and a testament to the power of Backbench Business debates, that we had cross-party consensus for changing the law. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) for introducing a ten-minute rule Bill on the matter. I am glad that this discussion is taking place today.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the work that he has done in relation to this matter. Does he agree that what we should be doing is punishing people who drive while disqualified per se? The higher-end penalty should be for driving while disqualified. The maximum two years, as I think it is now, should be increased, so that we might avoid at a later stage the terrible incident of death while driving disqualified.

[Chris Skidmore]

The important thing to recognise in new clause 14 is that it sends out a message and hope for future legislation. When I first began the campaign, many families were fairly sceptical that there would be any change, particularly this side of the general election. There was a concern that politicians would sit on their hands and not do anything. By passing this new clause we would be opening up future debate. I have great sympathy with new clause 22, but I have not had the time to study the implications of it in detail. If that could be part of the overall review that is taking place, I would absolutely welcome that.

When considering this review, I want to make a pitch for the families of Ross and Clare Simons that we look again at causing death by dangerous driving while disqualified. At the moment, the crime is just death by driving. Nicholas Lovell, who killed Ross and Clare Simons, was given the maximum sentence of 14 years—it is one of the only times that such a sentence has been delivered by the judge. As Lovell pleaded guilty, he was given 10 years and six months. The judge at the time said that had he the legal power, he would have given out a far tougher sentence. He gave the maximum, but he recognised that, because Lovell had been disqualified, there should have been an additional aggravating factor, or that an additional maximum tariff should have been added to the sentence. I would therefore welcome the review looking at death by dangerous driving while disqualified and upping that sentence.

[Karl Turner]

What the hon. Gentleman is saying, in my respectful submission, is that the judiciary and the courts should have more discretion over sentencing. New clause 22 does just that, does it not?

[Chris Skidmore]

We need to look again at the maximum tariff for causing death by dangerous driving while disqualified. The judge at the time wished for that power. I do not know the precise implications, which is why we need a review in the round. We need uniformity across the piece. One thing I realised from the Backbench Business debate was that I was not alone; the families were not alone. We heard about some of the awfully brief sentences that had been handed out, and the unequal nature of those sentences. It is very hard for a grieving family to find out that, in what seems to be an almost identical case, the sentence handed out in one area is entirely different from that handed out in another area. I would like to ensure that we put in place a rigid framework. Obviously, judges should have discretion as well, but victims need to understand—I am not a lawyer and I struggle at times to follow the complicated processes of the law—that if someone is disqualified, they should not be in a car in the first place; that is common sense. Nicholas Lovell should never have been in that car when he ploughed into Ross and Clare Simons’s tandem. It is for those families that new clause 14 has been introduced. For me and for the local families, it is Ross and Clare’s law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) who spoke so clearly on this issue. I agreed with much of what she said about this huge problem. It is astonishing how many people get off time after time. Some law firms even advertise their incredible success rates in achieving that, which we do not want to see.

There may be extenuating circumstances or special cases occasionally, but once someone has said they know they should be banned, and then makes a desperate plea, they should be more careful afterwards. It is not impossible to drive for quite a long time without breaking any rules or getting any points on your licence—some people have clean driving licences. Certainly if I had nine points, or even 12 points, I would try very hard indeed not to speed or drive dangerously. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the review.

I have a couple of pedantic points about the hon. Lady’s amendment, as I do not think it covers everything that it needs to. However, that is not the point for today. I hope that we can get the right changes that most of the House would want to see. I welcome the Government’s announcement of a review, and I hope that it will be a substantial review. I also hope that the Minister is successful in obtaining parliamentary time to ensure that the results of the review become law. A review will not solve the problem on its own.

I pay tribute to the work done by the CTC’s road justice campaign, which produced an excellent report called “Road Justice: the role of the police”—I know that the Minister has had some discussions with that organisation—which looked not only at the legal aspects, but at the role of the police and the prosecution. The law is not the only issue. Too often, especially when pedestrians or cyclists are the victims of collisions, the police do not investigate sufficiently to allow charges to be brought. In several cases, people have come to my surgery having been involved in a collision in which someone else behaved very dangerously and the police simply were not interested in doing the basic groundwork, such as taking photographs of the scene at the time. There is very little point us getting the law right if the police do not investigate and prosecutors do not take action. I know that the Minister is not responsible for the police, but I hope the review will look more broadly at the issue to ensure that its proposals will make a difference.

The campaign has had some 12,000 signatures, so we need some action in response. Some of the cases are astonishing. In one case, a gentleman had been drinking and smoking cannabis and then was speeding, with his girlfriend riding pillion, and crashed and killed a pedestrian. He had 45 previous traffic offences but apparently there was not enough evidence to charge him with causing death by dangerous driving, even though there was a clear cause of death—dangerous driving—and he had a long track record. He did get 18 months in jail, but the fact that prosecutors did not even feel able to bring a charge of death by dangerous driving is a problem.

[Karl Turner]

Prosecutions are made on whether there is enough evidence to bring the charge and, secondly, whether it is in the public interest. I do not mean to criticise the hon. Gentleman, but it may be a little unfair to say that a prosecution for dangerous driving should have been brought in that particular case. Perhaps there was good reason why it was not.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is right: I have not been through all the court transcripts in that case. But it is not an isolated case. It is a similar story in literally hundreds of cases—we have heard some today and many others have been collected in various places. I am sure he is not trying to suggest that he would agree with the action taken in every one of those cases.

One problem—and having spoken with many people about this, I cannot see an easy resolution to it—is that juries are often not prepared to convict on offences that perhaps they should be. Prosecutors can have a tendency to low-ball the charge to ensure a conviction. I hope that the review will address that issue, because none of us want to see charges being brought that juries feel are simply too serious to convict.