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Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Four years in jail for drunk driver who hit and run before saying car had been stolen
A driver has been jailed for four years for killing a cyclist, failing to stop at the collision and then reporting her car stolen.
Maria Sutton, 28, appeared at Oxford Crown Court this week, accused of causing death by careless driving when over the prescribed limit and perverting the course of justice in Cholsey, Oxfordshire last June.
In addition to the custodial sentence, Sutton was disqualified from driving for eight years, with the disqualification to start upon her release from prison, her licence was endorsed and she was ordered to take an extended test.
Dr Graham Ruecroft from Wallingford died in Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital five days after he had been struck by a car driven by Sutton on 4 June last year while he rode home from Cholsey station. Opening and adjourning an inquest, Coroner Darren Salter said that the 55-year-old had died from brain injuries.
Sutton, aged 27 at the time, fled the scene of the fatal collision, but was arrested by Thames Valley Police the following day. She initially claimed to officers that her car had been stolen but at Oxford Crown Court on 23 December last year pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
As we reported earlier this year, at the same court, in February this year she admitted causing death by careless driving but denied being over the drink-drive limit. In a further appearance on 5 April, she changed her plea to guilty on the more serious charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.
At some point between those court appearances in December and February, she posted a petition to the website Change.org under the title “Make it law for a cyclist to wear a helmet.”
On the petition’s page on Change.org, Sutton said:
"I think it should be a legal requirement for a cyclist to wear a helmet and fluorescent clothing! As a driver it's illegal not to wear a seatbelt and receive a fine. Cyclists should have the same responsibility. I have been involved in an accident with a cyclist and he unfortunately died. He wasn't wearing a helmet or reflective clothing and had flashing lights."
She did not mention that she had already pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, nor that she had been charged on 16 September last year of causing the cyclist’s death through careless driving while over the drink-drive limit.
The petition was closed on Change.org, apparently after the website was told about the circumstances of the case.
The victim’s family launched their own petition, also on change.org, addressed to the Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland,
It asked followers: Please support and forward this petition to as many people as possible to ensure this bill is a success for our family and dozens more across the UK who feel badly let down by lenient sentences given to killer drivers.
Gavin Hernandez, District Crown Prosecutor for Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: "This case involved a terrible incident, which led to the untimely death of 54-year-old Doctor Graham Ruecroft. This was a tragic waste of a life and one which could have been avoided.
"Dr Ruecroft had been cycling home, from the train station, along Wallingford Road, Cholsey, shortly after 10pm on 4 June 2015, when he was struck from behind by a black KIA Cee'd driven by Maria Sutton. Graham and his bicycle were projected onto the footpath and Graham sustained serious injuries. Sutton had been drinking, failed to stop and fled the scene, making no attempt to contact emergency services. Passing motorists stopped and Graham was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital where he died of a head injury on 9 June 2015.
"At just after 11pm on the night of the incident, in an attempt to conceal her involvement, Sutton reported her vehicle stolen from the Red Lion pub in Cholsey, where she had spent the evening drinking. It was subsequently located just after midnight a short distance from her home address.
"Following arrest, Sutton answered 'no comment' during two police interviews. Evidence, including debris left at the scene, witness statements, CCTV, expert and forensic evidence identified Sutton as the driver of her vehicle, and that she was twice over the prescribed alcohol limit, at the time of the collision. Due to the strength of evidence against her, and recognising that justice had caught up with her, she pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving when over the prescribed limit. She had pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice at an earlier hearing.
"This case highlights the serious consequences of failing to act responsibly when behind the wheel of a vehicle. All road users need to consider other people; particularly those, such as cyclists, who are more vulnerable than themselves. Holding a driving licence brings with it a high degree of responsibility that should always be at the forefront of a driver's mind.
"We have worked closely with Thames Valley Police since this investigation was launched and as a result of the hard work and diligence of the prosecution team, a just outcome has been achieved. We hope that the conviction and today's sentence will in some way help Dr Ruecroft's family and friends come to terms with this tragic event. Our thoughts are very much with them at this time."
Senior investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Gavin Collier of the Serious Collision Investigation Unit, said: "These are such tragic circumstances where a life has been needlessly taken.
"The actions taken by Maria Sutton during this investigation in an attempt to avoid responsibility and those not taken immediately following it, I find unforgivable. Not only did she knock Graham Ruecroft from his bicycle that evening, but then having momentarily stopped she chose to drive off and report her car stolen rather than to try and help him.
"Miss Sutton abandoned Mr Ruecroft when he needed her help the most, by driving off she left him where he lay in the road for someone else to find.
"We will never know if she had stopped and tried to help, if Mr Ruecroft would still be alive today.
"During the course of this investigation we have worked closely with Mr Ruecroft's family and our thoughts have been with them throughout."
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25 comments
Some other countries have the same number of idiots as us but fewer cyclist deaths. The difference is in the seriousness of their infrastructure planning, I think. Our bike infra is woeful, as if it's a junior colleague's lunchtime hobby. There's no sign in the designs that they recognise our lives depend on their plans.
I'd like to see 30 year driving bans, too right, but I'd rather see £10m fines for the authority whose infrastructure lets idiots kill people. That'd help everyone.
Steady on there. While I share your sentiment that we need better infrastructure, let's remember that cyclists are traffic and belong on the road.
To suggest that this collision, or others like it, are the fault of someone who didn't build a cycle path, is to miss the point by a huge margin.
The drunk woman who hit a person then left them for dead was the guilty party.
Haha, yes, good advice - I ought to have "steady on there" written on the inside of my glasses. But you know, I only agree partly with your thoughts here. Heavy punishment for the guilty drunk, of course, and people on bikes have equal rights of safe passage, spot on. But I'm not wedded to the "cyclists are traffic, belong on the road" thing. Cyclists in the netherlands living in a village 2 miles from a train station would have a safe infrastructure to let them reach that station.
The road in the incident here is dead straight, 2-lanes, just a wee road but could be pretty horrible (dangerous) for someone on a bike if busy with cars. In more advanced societies, it might be a single lane, with passing places, and the rest of it physically partitioned off for bikes. Such infra would be preposterous in the UK, and idiots here are then dangerous idiots.
Higher bans and massive insurance premiums (like £20k a year) would be nice. The problem with fining anything governmental is it's just a circle of taking money out of your own pockets.
That's true, fines don't really make sense when the organisation is already focused but is missing targets due to cash shortfalls - fining NHS hospitals is a good example.
But fines are great for focusing authorities that aren't pointing their policies correctly - think of fines for air pollution and fines for limiting landfill. Landfill fines are the big driver of the current uk recycling boom.
Councils aren't serious in their cyling infra. Rubber dividers are cheap. Money isn't the problem. Fines would focus authorities' thinking.
We live in an era where driving without licence and insurance is relatively common, and is not taken seriously when caught and prosecuted/sentenced. Sadly, higher bans and massive premiums would just exacerbate this.
Drivers in the UK know that they can get away with this sort of thing, and that's why they do it.
This leaves custodial sentences as the way to punish or deter using your car to kill. Choosing to drive, having been drinking, is tantamount to choosing your own convenience over someone else's life. This is a very trivial sentence for someone who is a hair's breadth away from having actively chosen to go out killing, especially since they tried (after the fact) to cover up their misdeeds, placing their own convenience over someone else's life having actually taken that life already.
Those who kill, and then try to cover up their act of homicide, should be banged up for a good deal more than 4 years; it is not significantly different, morally, from manslaughter. Instead, "perverting the couse of justice" is a shabby get-out, and stands as evidence that the system values the protection of motorists over whether bike riders live or die.
The problem with setting targets for sentencing is that other targets need to move. This is a bad case but it's not the worst. So if you set this woman 12 years in the manner described you'd have to set a level 1 case at more. How much more? 24 years? You then make driving worse than (m)any other cases where death is involved. Sentencing needs work, but it's a very complex process. There are other issues at the moment such as the complete omission of an offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.
I believe there should be a carrot/stick approach to sentencing. Yes 4 years seems lenient maybe out in 2 years, then an 8 year ban of driving to follow on.
There is still a large number of people who get behind the wheel whilst banned.
If the sentencing was say 12 years with 4 years to be served in prison(reduced for good behaviour) the remaining 8 years would be a whole sentence if the person was ever caught driving whilst they were banned.
Based on the whole "leaving the scene of an accident " and "perverting the course of justice " things, I don't imagine that she would take seriously the "banned from driving " thing... Suspending some of her jail time as a big stick for when (not if) she's caught driving while banned actually seems like a sensible suggestion.
Her victim is dead forever.
Her licence should have been revoked forever.
The question that perhaps should be asked is why this driver was not prosecuted for Gross Negligence Manslaughter: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road_traffic_offences_guidance_on_pro...
As any delay in the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death. In this case the delay was a deliberate act perpetrated by this criminal. Even if the charge was reduced to "Death By Careless Driving Under the Influence Of..." this would send a message that this charge, which I believe can warrant an even longer jail sentence, can be brought.
Your answer is at the bottom of the link.
"Gross negligence manslaughter should not be charged unless there is something to set the case apart from those cases where a statutory offence such as causing death by dangerous driving or causing death by careless driving could be proved. This will normally be evidence to show a very high risk of death, making the case one of the utmost gravity. This is in contrast to the statutory offences where all that is required is evidence that the driving was dangerous and that the manner of driving caused the death of another person."
There's another problem as well. Such cases are rarely sentenced harshly at all. Sometimes the best sentence is that achieved by the most appropriate charge. Sometimes it might be better to charge other matters. Don't forget that the driving charges are legally a bit easier to win so what you might lose in terms of "number of years" you trade off for at least winning.
That's why I asked a question? But surely leaving a victim to die, when their life could have been saved by purposely not calling the emergency services as soon as possible, does qualify as "setting the case apart" as described in the first sentence in the link. On the grounds that a fatality now becomes the direct and pre-meditated result of a deliberate action. By definition then the maximum sentence would surely be longer, and in this case more appropriate.
Surely is difficult to prove. We have no idea what causative link there was between the failure to call the emergency services. But, also, you have to divorce one act from another rather than there being a cumulative effect. So, here, the dangerous driving caused the death. The failure was just the act of a heartless human being. It doesn't make the initial act any worse, sadly.
You might want to google the sentences for negligent manslaughter mind, they are far from a panacea.
One could argue in this case that the dangerous driving caused a serious injury which need not have been fatal. But the deliberate act of not alerting the emergency services turned this into a death. Regarding sentences, have you ever come across a driver receiving the maximum sentence of 14 years? A valid comparison would be versus a guilty plea for manslaughter by gross negligence where a dangerous piece of machinery was used recklessly and the guilty party behaved like the criminal here. What are the comparative statistics of sentencing in the types of cases? In this case a lifetime revoking of a driving licence should have been given.
You could certainly make an argument that a charge of gross negligence manslaughter has been made out. However, as bendertherobot says, that would not necessarily increase the sentence. In particular, in this case the judge not only had the causing death charge, he also had the perverting charge to sentence. That allows the judge to impose life imprisonment, should he so wish (although there are guideline cases, obviously, that suggest he shouldn't do so). Any sentence for perverting can and should be consecutive to the driving charge.
In other words, the judge had the power to issue any sentence he wanted, subject to the usual limits of precedent, guidelines and appeals. Charging manslaughter wouldn't change the sentence as judges are bound to look at what the case is actually about rather than allow the niceties of charging to dictate it. The only times when charging a different offence makes a difference are when you are actually alleging more serious facts or when the maximum sentence for one offence is a really limiting factor.
The latter used to be a major reason why cases of non-fatal but serious injuries in driving cases would often be charged as GBH assaults: it allowed 5 years rather than 2. There's now an offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, which carries 5 years and therefore means that the assault charge is rarely required.
As usual, bendertherobot is right. This seems a little low on the guidelines, but not so far out as to be concerning in itself. In particular, personal mitigation is not something reported here, so we don't know how much of that there was. It doesn't have a huge effect, generally speaking, but it will have some.
The perverting charge was probably dealt with at the low end: it was a panicked attempt to avoid trouble, with little apparent sophistication. You see far worse, often attempting to implicate others, which is obviously more serious.
A general point on the maximum sentence, which often causes confusion: it is for the worst imaginable case, which includes having somebody who's done it before etc. For the huge majority of cases, the maximum sentence is basically irrelevant: you go to the guidelines if there are any and to case law otherwise. It's very rare to get maximum sentences applied.
It's not clear what's happened to the perverting course of justice charge. But the sentence for the death appears to be "correct" that is to say in line with the sentencing guidelines. Far too low, clearly, but lobby your MP to get matters changed.
What is interesting though is the actual reading, which is not clear. It's actually possible, in theory at least, to get a longer sentence for death by careless under the influence (the charge) than death by dangerous where alcohol is "merely" an aggravating factor. One to examine closely.
Given the circumstances, this seems lenient. Honest question for any experts in criminal law: If the maximum sentence is considerably higher, then why might the judge in this case have handed down considerably less than it?
The max is for the worst possible case of its type with a not guilty plea and then a conviction at trial. The worst that we've seen to date I think is this one:
http://www.roadjustice.org.uk/case-study/two-cyclists-killed-car-purley-...
Credit for an early guilty plea took it down from the max.
Here's the sentencing guidelines, I'm guessing she came in at level 2, got discount, hence the 4 years. It's perhaps a little low but not awfully so.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/web_causing_deat...
That's really informative - thanks for taking the trouble.
No worries, if you have the time there's a bit more to read here (though you may want to look at part 1 first)
https://roubaixcycling.cc/2016/02/03/crime-and-punishment-part-2/
Discount because she pleaded guilty, I imagine. Admittedly, she only pleaded guilty after attempting to pervert the course of justice and being faced with irrefutable evidence of her guilt, but still...
Just 4 years after perverting the course of "justice"
Life in prison if I had my way.