Campbell v R

The intermediate guideline category for causing death by careless driving is residual. It covers driving which is neither momentary inattention without aggravating features nor close to dangerous driving. It can include a single misjudgement.

Sentencing requires an objective assessment of the driving in its surrounding circumstances, including circumstances known and understood by the driver. Where culpability is low and there are no aggravating factors, the fact that death resulted does not itself justify custody. The court must also give proper credit for a late guilty plea where exceptional case-management and evidential circumstances explain its timing.

The appellant pleaded guilty at the Crown Court at Liverpool to causing death by careless driving under Road Traffic Act 1988, section 2B. He emerged from a side road and collided with a motorcycle travelling along the main carriageway. The motorcycle was exceeding the speed limit, although its precise speed remained unresolved.

The judge placed the driving in the intermediate guideline category, imposed 24 weeks’ imprisonment suspended for two years, a community requirement, a three-year driving disqualification and eight penalty points. The appellant challenged the categorisation, the limited credit for his guilty plea, the custodial sentence and the disqualification. The central issue was the proper guideline category and consequent sentence for this single failure to see an approaching motorcycle.

Disposition

1. Appeal allowed. The custodial sentence was quashed and replaced by a community order requiring 100 hours’ unpaid work. The penalty points were also quashed.
2. The guideline’s intermediate category, described as other cases of careless or inconsiderate driving, is residual. It applies where the driving is neither close to dangerous driving nor merely momentary inattention without aggravating factors. A single misjudgement may fall within it, but every case turns on its facts.
3. Culpability must be assessed objectively against the surrounding circumstances. The court must also consider circumstances known to and understood by the driver under Road Traffic Act 1988, section 3ZA(3).
4. The judge had not erred in rejecting the lowest category. The appellant had stopped, looked twice to the right, and had an uninterrupted view of about 300 metres. When emerging from a give-way junction into a major carriageway, he had to ensure that there was no obstruction in his path. His failure to see the motorcycle could not properly be characterised as momentary inattention.
5. However, the unresolved evidence that the motorcycle may have been travelling substantially above the speed limit meant that the appellant’s single misjudgement fell at the low end of the intermediate category. The special circumstances in which the defence expert’s opinion became available also required materially greater credit for the guilty plea.
6. In combination, those matters meant that the appellant’s culpability did not justify custody. The court imposed the reduced community order, taking account of the three months during which the quashed sentence had stood. Under Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, section 44(1), penalty points could not be imposed on the same occasion as a driving disqualification.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — allowed the sentence appeal and substituted a community order: [2009] EWCA Crim 2459 .
• Crown Court at Liverpool — following a guilty plea to causing death by careless driving, imposed a suspended custodial sentence, supervision, unpaid work, a driving disqualification and penalty points.