Monington, R. v

In sentencing for causing death by careless driving, a legal speed limit does not identify a speed that is safe or non-careless in all conditions. Culpability must be assessed by reference to the actual road, weather, visibility, route and driver circumstances under the Definitive Guideline: Causing Death by Driving.

A driver who takes a wet bend at, or close to, the limit at which it can be negotiated may be guilty of careless driving not far short of dangerous driving, even if travelling below the speed limit. Inexperience and lack of supervision may aggravate culpability where they contributed to the offending driving.

The appellant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Cardiff to causing death by careless driving after losing control of a car on a wet, illuminated road and striking trees. One passenger died and another was injured. The appellant held only a provisional licence, was unsupervised and had received no recent driving tuition.

The sentencing judge treated the driving as careless driving not far short of dangerous driving. He imposed two years’ imprisonment after allowing 20 per cent credit for the guilty plea, and disqualified the appellant for five years until he passed an extended retest.

The appellant appealed on the ground that the sentence was manifestly excessive because the driving should have fallen within a lower category of carelessness.

1. Appeal dismissed. The judge correctly applied the Definitive Guideline: Causing Death by Driving. The two-year custodial sentence was not excessive.

2. Sentencing in cases of this kind requires an assessment of the offender’s culpability and the harm caused, subject to the statutory maximum and the Guideline. The loss of life cannot be reflected adequately by any custodial term available to the Crown Court. The assessment is highly sensitive to the circumstances of the individual case.

3. The fact that the appellant was travelling below the 60 mph limit did not reduce his culpability. The limit did not indicate that it was safe, or incapable of being careless, to take this bend at that speed. Heavy rain, a wet road, the series of bends, the hazard markings and the appellant’s familiarity with the route all required an appropriate reduction in speed.

4. The absence of a further warning sign or a lower local speed limit did not assist the appellant. His argument also wrongly relied on the upper end of the expert’s estimated range for negotiating the bend. He was travelling within that range, above its lower end, and the estimate of his speed was itself an underestimate because it excluded the effects of impacts with the trees.

5. For an inexperienced and unsupervised provisional licence holder to drive at, or near, the maximum speed at which the bend could be negotiated in wet conditions was careless driving not far short of dangerous driving. The Guideline identifies highly inappropriate speed for prevailing conditions as an example of dangerous driving. The distinction between that and excessive speed at the highest level of careless driving was one of degree, and the judge was entitled to place this case in the top category.

6. The judge’s pre-credit assessment of 30 months’ imprisonment was therefore sound. Applying 20 per cent credit for the guilty plea properly produced a sentence of two years’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2018] EWCA Crim 2016, the court dismissed the appellant’s appeal against sentence.
• Crown Court at Cardiff: On 16 April 2018, His Honour Judge Bidder QC sentenced the appellant, following a guilty plea to causing death by careless driving, to two years’ imprisonment and a five-year driving disqualification until an extended retest was passed.