Grief can now be used a defense in the UK in dangerous driving cases in which a loved one of the perpetrator dies. In such cases, the charges could be dropped altogether due to the emotional trauma involved, the UK’s top prosecutor announced.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer told UK state
lawyers to look at the “greater emotional impact” of a
sentence when charging motorists who have accidentally killed a
family member or loved one in a car accident. Starmer argued such
sentences would be “oppressive and insensitive” to people
who have already suffered severe emotional trauma.
Under the revised Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance,
prosecutors are told to balance the seriousness of the incident
with the fact that the driver is“likely to have suffered
significant personal loss from the bereavement.”
“Whilst there may be sufficient evidence to prosecute, we
recognize that in some instances such prosecutions would be
inappropriate and it would not be in the public interest to proceed
because of the likely lifelong consequences of losing a loved one
and being responsible for that loss,” the new guidelines
said.
“A driver who makes a genuine mistake that ends the life of a
close friend or family member will bear a particularly heavy
responsibility,” Starmer told reporters.
This is the first time in the UK that emotional grief can be
used as an argument to drop murder charges. Under the new rules,
even those guilty of killing a passenger while driving and talking
on their phone or tuning the radio may not end up being
charged.
For example, parents who cause road accidents while racing to a
hospital with a sick child will avoid being charged, as they would
fall under the same category as police and other emergency crews
who are considered to be responding to an emergency.
If the offense is more serious — such as drunk driving or
prolonged dangerous driving — then the offender would still be
prosecuted. However, the decision of whether to charge or not will
be made by prosecutors behind closed doors, and not by a judge and
jury in public.
Last year, there were over 660 prosecutions involving deaths
caused by a driving offenses in the UK.
Road safety activists hailed the revised guidelines: “If a
genuine mistake has been made by a driver which leads to the death
of a family member, they will have to live with that guilt and
remorse for the rest of their lives,” AA President Edmund King
told The Telegraph. “If the guidance is managed with sensitivity
it will result in a common-sense approach to crime and
punishment.”
The aftermath of losing a close family member
This article originally appeared on : RT