{"id":32432,"date":"2013-05-10T11:48:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T10:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/grieving-reckless-motorists-to-avoid-prosecution-in-uk\/32432\/"},"modified":"2013-05-10T11:48:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T10:48:00","slug":"grieving-reckless-motorists-to-avoid-prosecution-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/grieving-reckless-motorists-to-avoid-prosecution-in-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Grieving\u2019 reckless motorists to avoid prosecution in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Reuters\/Suzanne<\/a><\/div>\n

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\u2019s top prosecutor announced.<\/p>\n

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer told UK state
\nlawyers to look at the \u201cgreater emotional impact\u201d<\/i> of a
\nsentence when charging motorists who have accidentally killed a
\nfamily member or loved one in a car accident. Starmer argued such
\nsentences would be \u201coppressive and insensitive\u201d<\/i> to people
\nwho have already suffered severe emotional trauma.<\/p>\n

Under the revised Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidance,
\nprosecutors are told to balance the seriousness of the incident
\nwith the fact that the driver is\u201clikely to have suffered
\nsignificant personal loss from the bereavement.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst there may be sufficient evidence to prosecute, we
\nrecognize that in some instances such prosecutions would be
\ninappropriate and it would not be in the public interest to proceed
\nbecause of the likely lifelong consequences of losing a loved one
\nand being responsible for that loss,\u201d<\/i> the new guidelines
\nsaid.<\/p>\n

\u201cA driver who makes a genuine mistake that ends the life of a
\nclose friend or family member will bear a particularly heavy
\nresponsibility,\u201d<\/i> Starmer told reporters.<\/p>\n

This is the first time in the UK that emotional grief can be
\nused as an argument to drop murder charges. Under the new rules,
\neven those guilty of killing a passenger while driving and talking
\non their phone or tuning the radio may not end up being
\ncharged.<\/p>\n

For example, parents who cause road accidents while racing to a
\nhospital with a sick child will avoid being charged, as they would
\nfall under the same category as police and other emergency crews
\nwho are considered to be responding to an emergency.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

If the offense is more serious \u2014 such as drunk driving or
\nprolonged dangerous driving \u2014 then the offender would still be
\nprosecuted. However, the decision of whether to charge or not will
\nbe made by prosecutors behind closed doors, and not by a judge and
\njury in public.<\/p>\n

Last year, there were over 660 prosecutions involving deaths
\ncaused by a driving offenses in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Road safety activists hailed the revised guidelines: “If a
\ngenuine mistake has been made by a driver which leads to the death
\nof a family member, they will have to live with that guilt and
\nremorse for the rest of their lives,\u201d<\/i> AA President Edmund King
\ntold The Telegraph. “If the guidance is managed with sensitivity
\nit will result in a common-sense approach to crime and
\npunishment.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The aftermath of losing a close family member <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s top prosecutor announced. Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer told UK state lawyers to look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}