Woman jailed for using a mobile minutes before a fatal crash

[98elise]

Is this just sloppy reporting, or is there more to this?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28585757

I don't condone the use of a mobile at the wheel, but if it was 6 minutes before a crash (fatal or otherwise) then what does that have to do with the accident?

You could have been pulled up safely, or walking to your car 6 minutes before an accident.

[98elise]

Mill Wheel said:

SK425 said:

Mill Wheel said:

The reasons are all there in the report - it doesn't seem sloppy to me, she got what she deserved.

Something's missing in the report. Why did the judge conclude this

BBC News said:

Sentencing Usaceva, Judge Sean Enright said: "If you were not sending texts at the time, then you were fiddling with your phone and that is what caused this collision.

when mitigation said this?

BBC News said:

Mitigating for her, Ian Brownhill said: "There is a gap of six minutes - I would say clear water - between using the phones and the accident itself."

Either the judge reached that conclusion by rectal pluck, or despite what was said in mitigation the judge's conclusion was supported by some evidence. We might choose to believe that one of those is rather more likely than the other, but the report doesn't shed any light.

The topic title reads, "Woman jailed for using a mobile minutes before a fatal crash" but the report linked to says "Woman who used two mobile phones jailed for Wisbech death crash"
It then goes on to report that she admitted the charge of causing death by careless driving.
The defence brief was chancing his arm in MITIGATING with the possibility that she wasn't reading a text or composing one, or he would have tried that as a defence and proposed some other cause for the fact she ploughed into another vehicle with sufficient force to cause the death of the occupant.

Unless they published the full court transcript, it could hardly be described as sloppy... the facts are there including her previous convictions for phone use.

Applogies, I was going to link to the daily mail, but linked to BBC at the kast minute. The tone of most reporting is that the phone use was a factor, and also the judge makes reference to it.

To me they are two seperate incidents.

[98elise]

Prawnboy said:

when you have been nicked for using phones twice before and you were using one 6 minutes previous to the accident it's a very good chance phones are the cause.

Thats the link I don't see. Its a bit like saying you have points for speeding, therefore you can be done for speeding when there is no evidence that you have been.

The evidence shows she used her phone 6 minutes before. How is it then a factor in the accident? The law works on what can be proved beyond reasonable doubt, not what that she probably was or was not doing.

[98elise]

tenpenceshort said:

The choice of "fairly high speed" is yours to make, but the price you pay is the chance of negative statements (you say realise) would materialise. The idea that witness evidence of your driving immediately prior to a collision shouldn't be admissible seems more worrying than your own concerns.

Why then (as I understand it) are peoples previous criminal convictions not used as evidence in criminal trials. Say you have somone accused of breaking and entering, isn't their previous history of breaking an entering a factor in deciding someones guilt?

Personally I do think that a person prior behaviour is a factor, but there has to be some other evidence of guilt. In the case of this person, the evidence seems to be that she used the phone 6 minutes before, but there is no evidence that she was using the phone at the time of the accident.