R v Noble
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE KEENE |
| Judgment Date | 24 June 2002 |
| Neutral Citation | [2002] EWCA Crim 1713 |
| Date | 24 June 2002 |
| Docket Number | No: 01/1885/W1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
[2002] EWCA Crim 1713
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
The Strand
London WC2
Lord Justice Keene
Mr Justice Davis and
Recorder of Cardiff
His Honour Judge John Griffith Williams QC
(Sitting as a Judge of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division)
No: 01/1885/W1
MR R SMITH QC & MR J BAIRD appeared on behalf of the APPELLANT
Monday 24th June 2002
On 6th March 2001 at Sheffield Crown Court before His Honour Judge Goldsack QC this appellant, Peter Noble, was convicted of six offences of causing death by dangerous driving. He had previously pleaded guilty to one offence of driving while disqualified. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on each of the first three counts to run concurrently and to ten years' imprisonment on the remaining counts of causing death by dangerous driving, to run concurrently with each other but consecutively to the terms of five years. For driving while disqualified, he received a sentence of five months' imprisonment to run concurrently. He thus received a total of fifteen years' imprisonment. He was also disqualified from driving for life. He now appeals against sentence by leave of the single judge.
The offences arose out of events on the A57 trunk road east of Sheffield on Sunday 2nd July 2000. In brief, at about 8.15 pm on that day the appellant, as a result of his dangerous driving, caused a collision between his vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser, and a Daewoo Lanos motorcar. The appellant lost control of the vehicle which he was driving. It veered across the road into a stone wall and then rebounded into the path of the Daewoo car. As a result of that collision six people, three from each vehicle, were killed. Those who died were as follows: in the Toyota three of the passengers were killed: Dennis Royston, who was aged 36; David Wood, aged 35, and John Hayward, whose car it was, aged 42. In the Daewoo, which had been coming from the opposite direction and which had at all times been on its correct side of the road, the driver, Roy Holmes, aged 79, was killed, as was his wife Audrey, aged 69, and their daughter-in-law, Diane Holmes, aged 47. Others were injured as a result of the accident. The appellant was fortunate in receiving relatively minor injuries.
The evidence in the case revealed a quite shocking course of conduct. The appellant and some friends had begun drinking at about 1.30 pm that day. In the course of the afternoon and early evening, they went on what the trial judge accurately called a 'motorised pub crawl'. In all, the appellant admitted to having drunk twelve pints of lager, one pint of mixed lager and cider, and two Bacardi Breezers by the time of the collision.
By the latter part of the afternoon there were nine of them in this group and certainly from about 4 pm onwards the appellant did the driving. Eventually they were all in the Toyota shortly after 8 pm being driven by the appellant eastwards along the busy A57 trunk road which crosses the M1 motorway at a grade separated interchange just east of Sheffield. There was evidence that the appellant drove at an excessive speed before reaching that interchange. Once across it, he continued to drive at a high speed, estimates varying between 60 and 80 mph, even though the road surface was wet. The road narrowed to a single carriageway, with a speed limit of 60 mph. It then had a double bend, first left and then right. Such was the speed at which the Toyota took the bend that the appellant lost control of it. It veered across the carriageway, struck the stone wall on the opposite side and then continued down on the wrong side of the road, toppling on to its side and eventually hitting the Daewoo with the Holmes family in it. They had just left a family barbecue.
After the collision the appellant ran off across the nearby fields and spent the night at his sister's home. He was eventually arrested the following day. On his arrest, he stated that it was Hayward who had been driving the vehicle at the time of the accident. On arrival at the police station, he provided samples of breath, which by then gave a negative reading for alcohol. On the appellant's account as to how much he had had to drink, it was estimated that at the time of the collision he would have been likely to have had approximately 150 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood in his system.
At a first interview, he accepted that he had been drinking all afternoon on that Sunday and that he would have been drunk, but he still insisted that Hayward had been the driver. However, on 5th July, whilst still in custody, he broke down in his cell and admitted that he had been driving. In the interview which then followed, he stated that he had not driven dangerously and he believed that his vehicle had aquaplaned due to surface water on the road.
The appellant is now aged 41. One of the aggravating features of the case is his record of previous driving offences. In 1990, he was fined for failing to provide a specimen of breath; in 1991, he was convicted of driving with excess alcohol and was disqualified from driving for three years; in March 1997, he was again convicted of driving with excess alcohol, given 100 hours of community service and disqualified again from driving, this time for four years. He was in consequence driving whilst disqualified at the time of the present offences.
On his behalf, Mr Smith QC criticises the total sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment as being wrong in principle because, it is said, consecutive sentences were not appropriate where all the offences arose out of the one incident. In addition, it is submitted that the total term here was clearly excessive. It is said that the maximum sentence of ten years was in any event adequate in this case, although it is accepted that the total sentence had to be towards the upper end of the range, where the maximum is, as we say, ten years.
Mr Smith contends that the court should be slow to impose the maximum penalty in any particular case, although he concedes that he has been unable to find a case with as many aggravating features as this one. Nonetheless, he prays in aid such mitigating circumstances as can be found here. Those are the fact that the appellant has a good work record and is a family man. There are letters before the court speaking of his remorse. It...
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