Case Comment: R. v Holder (Kai Nathaniel)

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Dangerous Driving, Deterrence, Disqualification and a missed opportunity to address Destructive Behaviour: the new Sentencing Guidelines for Motoring Offences

[Opening paragraph] On 28 June 2022, sections 86 and 87 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 came intoforce, raising the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving (CDDD)1 and causingdeath by careless driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs (CDCDUI)2 from 14 years to lifeimprisonment, and creating a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.3 This changefollowed years of campaigning from victim and road safety groups and was welcomed by them, butinitially caused some problems in the Crown Court given that existing guidelines4 provided guidancebased on the previous maximum.5  On 15 June 2023 the Sentencing Council published its newguideline, on which it had consulted up until October 2022, and it came into effect on 1 July 2023.</p

Brave New World: Legislating for the Future of Driverless Cars

Reviews proposals in the 2022 "Automated Vehicles: Joint Report" by the English, Scottish and Welsh Law Commissions for a legislative regime for driverless cars. Details the criminal penalties involved, key areas of individual and organisational liability, and the implications of the reforms. </p

Clarkson and Keating criminal law: text and material (ninth edition)

Clarkson and Keating criminal law: text and materials examines the main principles and rules of criminal law and explores the theoretical bases upon which they are founded in an easily digestible text

Causing controversy: interpreting the requirements of causation in criminal law and tort law

The occurrence of a fatal road traffic collision may raise a number of legal issues and result in litigation both in the civil and criminal courts. The role of the different branches of law is distinct, with the aims of the litigation being quite different, but both require causation to be proved. Such cases are examined in this article as a vehicle for discussing how the principles of causation play out in each branch of law. It will be seen that the particular aims of the law dictate how doctrines of causation are applied, with particular problems caused by the legislature’s creation of strict liability offences. To resolve these problems, we propose that the criminal law borrow from negligence in adopting a test akin to the ‘harm within the risk’ test, adapting it to the role of the criminal law by formulating a ‘harm within the wrong’ requirement for causation

Driving Offences: Promoting Consistency for Victims in "victimless" Crimes of Endangerment

On 16th July 2019 the Department for Transport (DfT) announced a two-year long review into roads policing and traffic enforcement to highlight best practice and identify gaps in service. The road safety minister stated that “we have strong laws in place to ensure people are kept safe on our roads at all times. But roads policing is a key deterrent in stopping drivers breaking the law and risking their and other people’s lives.”1 The authors are largely in agreement with this statement but, as we found through our recent research into the enforcement of driving offences, enforcement is inconsistent and variable, both in the resources allocated to enforcement and in the way in which the present law is interpreted and enforced. We will set out some of the most important findings in this article. Some of the initiatives we examined have been recognised by the DfT in its Road Safety Action Plan, published a few days after the review was announced </div

Swift and sure justice? Mode of trial for causing death by driving offences

In this paper we present empirical evidence on the allocation of causing death by driving offences to explore the inter-relationship between different criminal justice policy goals. Specifically, we look at the decision-making of the various parties involved in such cases: the prosecution in recommending the venue for trials; the defence in deciding whether to plead guilty or to elect trial in the Crown Court; and magistrates in deciding whether to accept jurisdiction or commit to the Crown Court. These decisions are then set within the context of the Government’s desire to achieve ‘Swift and Sure Justice’, promote correct allocation decisions for either-way offences, and reduce the number of ‘cracked trials’. The data show that many of these cases are committed to the Crown Court, only to receive a sentence within the powers of magistrates, and that the proportion of cases where this happens is higher than for mainstream offences. Our contention is that although there is something special about the offences under discussion, in that the fact that a death is involved raises issues as to how justice is seen to be done, undue focus is placed upon ‘swift justice’ which generates problems later in the process

Criminal law: text and materials (eighth edition)

Clarkson and Keating criminal law: text and materials examines the main principles and rules of criminal law and explores the theoretical bases upon which they are founded in an easily digestible text