Kill two cyclists but get away with community sentence
Comments
-
I don't think Gary McCourt should be given a custodial sentence, I'm not sure that would serve any real purpose. However there is the real question of whether he deserves the privilege of a driving license as no matter how long he is banned from driving, he is only being removed from the road on a temporary basis.
Gary McCourt has been the cause of two fatal collisions while at the wheel of a motor vehicle. At what point does society decide that the convenience to him of a driving license is outweighed by the potential of him being the cause of further serious road incidents?Boardman CX Team0 -
diy wrote:Hangeron - have you taken a driving test recently - its not a particularly low barrier.
Compared with the rest of Europe we have the lowest pass rates for the cheapest system with the least amount of training possible. In Austria a course to get your license takes a long time, which hundreds of different courses you need to take. Much better quality of driving there, as most of Europe, with exception of Rome haha!0 -
Austria's roads much safer than ours?0
-
Double post.0
-
Its got to be Saudi Arabia. The test there is so hard that no woman has ever managed to pass it
Seriously though Austria does not have a better record than UK. Fatality per Bvkm is really the best measure taking in to account exposure to risk. Second would be fatality per population, but that is flawed as it fails to take in to account specific differences. Under both UK fairs better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate0 -
The driving standards are set much higher. I can understand why they have more deaths though, the weather is catastrophic every year. Quite possibly a lot of the fatalities are linked to the weather making it impossible to drive, i've had snow flurries come out of nowhere and blow us off the road within seconds with no warning, and had many snow slides in our area which are out of the control parameters of drivers.
Didn't realise there was that much more of a difference between the countries, but the learners system is much better over there. I was speaking in terms of things happening for cyclists, as people leave huge gaps for you as a cyclist, and have a bit of patience if they can not pass, both of which are taught in the driving schools. As a cyclist there you almost do not have to look around because there is no fear of being hit by them.0 -
diy wrote:Fatality per Bvkm is really the best measure taking in to account exposure to risk.
Striking that the UK does pretty well on that measure (at least based on the wikipedia data) - only biggish country that does significantly better is Sweden.0 -
I think we have to understand that there really can't be such thing as black and white laws. By their nature they are in place to set rules but rules are to keep order yet views on prefer differ between lifelong friends yet alone people who do lot know each other or police/cps and the public.
If we really wanted to have set laws I would bet every man here in a long term relationship would be looking at a 5-7 stretch in jail with a lifetime of horrific stigma !Living MY dream.0 -
cookdn wrote:I don't think Gary McCourt should be given a custodial sentence, I'm not sure that would serve any real purpose. However there is the real question of whether he deserves the privilege of a driving license as no matter how long he is banned from driving, he is only being removed from the road on a temporary basis.
Gary McCourt has been the cause of two fatal collisions while at the wheel of a motor vehicle. At what point does society decide that the convenience to him of a driving license is outweighed by the potential of him being the cause of further serious road incidents?
That's all very well, but the fact is when he killed his first victim he did not have a full licence, no insurance and left the scene of the accident.
Here is a man who has little regard for the law and has killed two people within 1 mile of each other by the same method. You would think that someone who had an accident which involved a fatality in the near vicinity (no matter how long ago) would be extra vigilant.
He should certainly be banned from driving for life but I also think a custodial sentence would be appropriate.0 -
VTech wrote:I think we have to understand that there really can't be such thing as black and white laws. By their nature they are in place to set rules but rules are to keep order yet views on prefer differ between lifelong friends yet alone people who do lot know each other or police/cps and the public.
If we really wanted to have set laws I would bet every man here in a long term relationship would be looking at a 5-7 stretch in jail with a lifetime of horrific stigma !
What are you trying to say here?
Gibberish0 -
Sorry, was typing off a phone.
I meant to say that by their nature, laws are perceptions of whats happened or intent. You cant have set laws so whatever happens can be judged on reality rather than intent/accident.
My example would be that the law says rape is illegal, so if a man (or a woman) tries it on with their partner who may not be in the mood and they say NO and you try it on and say come on, and pester them until they give in you are in fact guilty of rape (if the law was judged perfectly down the line) but in reality i doubt that would be the outcome.
Likewise if you kill someone your guilty of murder but that could also be manslaughter or accidental depending on viewpoint.
Several years ago a friend of my wife's mother killed her husband who beat her for years, one day she had enough, he was hitting her and she stabbed him whilst peeling potatoes.
She was arrested, removed from the family home and put in a hostel for battered women, when the case came to course she was charged with manslaughter and the case was thrown out at trial and she walked free.
She killed someone but didnt deserve to go to jail, likewise others would say he didnt deserve to die.
Laws in my opinion are perceptions and viewpoints.Living MY dream.0 -
VTech wrote:If we really wanted to have set laws I would bet every man here in a long term relationship would be looking at a 5-7 stretch in jail with a lifetime of horrific stigma !
So you're saying that every so often a man ends up raping his wife? :shock:0 -
That is why we have judges.VTech wrote:Sorry, was typing off a phone.
I meant to say that by their nature, laws are perceptions of whats happened or intent. You cant have set laws so whatever happens can be judged on reality rather than intent/accident.
My example would be that the law says rape is illegal, so if a man (or a woman) tries it on with their partner who may not be in the mood and they say NO and you try it on and say come on, and pester them until they give in you are in fact guilty of rape (if the law was judged perfectly down the line) but in reality i doubt that would be the outcome.
Likewise if you kill someone your guilty of murder but that could also be manslaughter or accidental depending on viewpoint.
Several years ago a friend of my wife's mother killed her husband who beat her for years, one day she had enough, he was hitting her and she stabbed him whilst peeling potatoes.
She was arrested, removed from the family home and put in a hostel for battered women, when the case came to course she was charged with manslaughter and the case was thrown out at trial and she walked free.
She killed someone but didnt deserve to go to jail, likewise others would say he didnt deserve to die.
Laws in my opinion are perceptions and viewpoints.
At least in some circumstances a to lenient sentence can be appealed against.Tail end Charlie
The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.0 -
ooermissus wrote:VTech wrote:If we really wanted to have set laws I would bet every man here in a long term relationship would be looking at a 5-7 stretch in jail with a lifetime of horrific stigma !
So you're saying that every so often a man ends up raping his wife? :shock:
Dont try and make it more than it is for the fame of causing another argument. You seem to have a habit of trying to start fights for the sake of it which at times can be understood (I think its stupid and a waste of your time myself) but when other things are being discussed it becomes tedious.Living MY dream.0 -
We were discussing driving standards in Austria before you charged in. But you're probably right, I shouldn't have posted - just had no idea what point you were trying to make or whether it even passed a Turing test.0
-
lifetime bans..
I'm not sure the framework exists for a life time ban? We also have a concept of rehabilitation, which is a very good thing to have in a criminal justice system. As society we need to allow people who have paid their debt for crimes committed to have a reason to rehabilitate and move forward in the right direction.
There is a case going forward at the moment for whole life sentences for murderers. If you read Jeremy Bamber's case he claims that because he is destined to spend the rest of his life in prison he is basically exempt from all laws. There can be no threat of punishment to deter him from any crime. Hence he does as he pleases. I don't buy his story, but I do think that 90% of criminals should have the hope of rehabilitation.
Sentencing..
If the judge in this case was following the rules he should have taken the previous conviction in to account as an aggravating factor. BUT he must also take in to account the lack of a helmet as mitigation. I don't think we can rely on the news article for an accurate transcript.0 -
IanLD wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22397918
As has been said in other posts, if it was a cop, then the book gets thrown at them, but the rest of us are totally dispensable and worthless hinderances to motorists..
What absolute rubbish. The police don't decide who gets charged with what and there'd be no difference if the cyclist was a police officer. I've lost colleagues killed in the line of duty and whilst out cycling off duty, none of the people responsible for their deaths received any harsher sentence because they were police officers. There's no section in any charge that says " caused the death of so and so who happens to be a police officer".I ride a bike. Doesn't make me green or a tree hugger. I drive a car too.0 -
A long time ago I did a course on moral philosophy which covered, amongst other things, justifications for punishment. There are basically four categories of justification:
- Deterrent. The function of punishment is to deter people who might consider committing a crime. Obviously the best way to do this is to punish people who commit crimes, but note that in theory, you don't need to do this, you just need to make people believe that they will be punished if they commit a crime... Also obviously, if you are justifying punishment on this basis you need to show that the deterrent actually works.
- Rehabilitation - The function of punishment is to change people so that they are less likely to commit further crimes in the future.
- Prevention - the function of punishment (specifically imprisonment) is just to keep criminals away from the rest of society so that they can't commit further crimes. Note that if this is your only justification for punishment, there is no argument for making the punishment deliberately unpleasant - just as long as the criminal is prevented from committing further crimes.
- Retribution - the function of punishment is to satisfy society's sense of fairness by seeing that the criminals "get what they deserve". This is the Daily Mail argument, and also, perhaps surprisingly, favoured by many judges. The sophisticated version is that it is necessary to punish wrongdoers in order to maintain general social order. If this didn't happen, people would naturally "take the law into their own hands" and social chaos would result.
Personally I don't go for retribution. I like to be optimistic and believe that human beings are capable of rising above their natural instincts for revenge, difficult as it may be and as understandable as these instincts are. Rehabilitation (combined with education so that people don't commit crimes in the first place) is obviously the best option IMO, to the extent that it works. Obviously it often doesn't, so regrettably it is probably necessary to have punishment as a practical deterrent and as a prevention.
Going back to the case in question - this guy has clearly shown that for whatever reasons, he isn't capable of driving carefully and responsibly enough to avoid serious danger to others. Having already killed one person, you would think that he would never, ever allow himself to be careless again while driving. So there is a very good argument for banning him for life, justifying this on the basis of prevention (as above). If there isn't a mechanism in place for doing this, there should be! There is also perhaps an argument for punishment as a deterrent, although this is perhaps slightly arbitrary - if we punish people who are careless and who kill, it should act as some deterrent to anyone who might be careless, although it would be far better and less arbitrary just to punish everyone who was careless (based on intent rather than consequences). The problem is that it's just not very practical to do this, because unless there are consequences, being careless often isn't recognised.0 -
diy wrote:If the judge in this case was following the rules... he must also take in to account the lack of a helmet as mitigation.
I am not sure that's right. The England/Wales sentencing guidelines:Where the actions of the victim or a third party contributed to the commission of an offence, this should be acknowledged and taken into account as a mitigating factor.
You're then into arguments about whether a helmet (potentially) contributes to the commission of an offence or (potentially) has an impact on the consequences. (E.g. riding without lights could make a driver more likely to hit a cyclist (commission) but would change whether or not he died (consequences).
Certainly far from clear a judge/sheriff must lay blame on the victim in this kind of case.0 -
Who knows, we don't have the facts, but..The sheriff said Mrs Fyffe "wasn't to blame in any way for the accident", but added: "She was not wearing a safety helmet and that in my view contributed to her death."
The lack of a helmet was a factor in the death, then it is the difference between two offences. So very clearly we have the action (implicit inaction) of the victim contributing to the commission of an offence.
From the press article, its not clear if the judge considered this and rejected it or considered it and applied it as a mitigation factor.
I must admit, based on the article, I'm more interested in the statement that there were no aggravating factors. The previous offence is very clearly one.Sheriff James Scott spared McCourt a prison because there were no aggravating factors, such as drink or drug abuse.
Its possible that the previous conviction of 18 years ago is subject to the rehabilitation of offenders act - and (EDIT) I'm sure it cannot be counted.0 -
The sheriff said the collision was caused through the driver momentarily losing concentration.
I hazard that had the loss of concentration not occured the fact the cyclist was helmet less wouldn't have mattered, as she'd have had no need of one.
It's shifting the blame. In the same manner as the rape victim wearing a mini skirt is somehow to blame for the rapists actions.Tail end Charlie
The above post may contain traces of sarcasm or/and bullsh*t.0 -
One of the arguments that the CTC is making to the Lord Advocate is the fact that the sheriff did not take any evidence regarding whether the lack of a helmet contributed to her death. It appears that he made an assumption without taking evidence. It may be the case that wearing a helmet would not in fact have made any difference. Also helmets are not compulsory so it should have been an irrelevance.0
-
It would be the difference between careless driving and death by careless driving. So its obviously very important assuming it made that much of a difference to the sentence.
Having now checked the facts, the previous killing would not have been a consideration or very heavily discounted.0 -
diy wrote:Having now checked the facts, the previous killing would not have been a consideration or very heavily discounted.
How do you work that out?0 -
My guess is most likely that it was out of the time period judges or prosecutions are allowed to use previous offences. I know in the states it is something like 10 years unless it was a very frequent problem.0
-
correct.
He was sentenced to less than 2.5 years which in this case means likely to be spent after 10 years for an adult
see s 7(2) Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
Though in reality its not black and white.0 -
That's really interesting and haven't seen it brought up before. Here's more:After a verdict of guilty, the court must be provided with a statement of the defendant’s record for the purposes of sentence. The record supplied should contain all previous convictions, but those which are spent should, so far as practicable, be marked as such...
When passing sentence the judge should make no reference to a spent conviction unless it is necessary to do so for the purpose of explaining the sentence to be passed.
Again not sure how this applies to Scotland - but certainly complicates matters.0 -
Its broadly the same. edit.. this explains the process better.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sent ... rinciples/0 -
http://road.cc/content/news/84353-audre ... nce-appeal
4,500 people have written to the Lord Advocate asking him to appeal the sentence. Mrs Fyfes daughter urging everyone to add their support by the deadline of 31 May.0 -
http://road.cc/content/news/84585-audre ... er-drivers
Now over 5,000. There is a link in the article above for anyone who has not added their name to do so if they wish. Deadline is Friday 31 May.0
