R v Rayner ; R v Wing
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 24 October 1994 |
| Date | 24 October 1994 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Taylor of Gosforth, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice Longmore
Criminal sentencing - death by driving - should reflect offender's criminality
The Court of Appeal would not be persuaded by campaigns or clamour in cases involving death by driving to pass extremely long sentences where the criminality of the offenders did not justify them.
The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so stated when increasing to four years two sentences of 18 months imprisonment which had been passed on two offenders who had caused death when driving.
The two cases had been referred by the Attorney-general as having unduly lenient sentences. Simon Nicholas Rayner (Attorney-general's Reference No 24 of 1994), aged 33, pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court (Judge Norman Jones, QC) to causing death by dangerous driving. David Wing,(Attorney-general's Reference No 32 of 1994) pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court (Judge Bryant) to causing death by driving without due care and attention having consumed alcohol above the prescribed limit.
Both offences were introduced by the Road Traffic Act 1991, by substituting sections in the Road Traffic Act 1988: section 1 causing death by dangerous driving and section 3A causing death by driving without due care and attention and having consumed so much alcohol that the proportion of it in the blood at the time exceeded the prescribed limit. The maximum sentence in each case of five years was doubled within a year of its coming into effect, by section 67 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993.
Mr David Calvert-Smith for the Attorney-general; Mr J R W Goss, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for Rayner; Mr James M Hill, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for Wing.
THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, giving the judgment of the court, said that both references raised similar points and were heard together.
In cases involving death by driving, nobody could bring back to life those who had been killed on the roads. Their Lordships understood the feeling of those, relatives and friends of the deceased, who felt that there ought to be a correlation between the loss of life and the length of the sentence.
Their Lordships understood also that no length of sentence would ever satisfy those who lost loved ones that a proper correlation had been made.
Their Lordships had to emphasise that their court could not be persuaded by campaigns or by...
To continue reading
Request your trial