The Warrants Drawer.

This driver who ran over a woman, made off and then failed to appear in court has finally been brought to justice. The police claim that the offender "disappeared off the face of the earth", otherwise known as going to live in West Norwood.

I imagine that what really happened was:

The offender, Mr HEARD, was traced, arrested and charged. Police applied for him to be remanded in custody due to his poor record of turning up in court and consistent offending on bail. He appeared in court the next day and the magistrate hummed and hawed and decided that it was unlikely that the guy would abscond, given he was only to be sentenced to a couple of years in jail. HEARD was given bail, failed to show up in court and a warrant was issued for him. If Brighton nick is anything like Blandmore, the warrant got filed in THE WARRANTS DRAWER, a place of mystical and ancient cases from the mists of time and laws that don't exist any more. Every now and again when someone stuck a pin in the letter "H", HEARD's warrant was taken out and someone knocked on the door of the address he had not lived in for five years. The warrant would then be returned to the drawer where it remained until Heard was caught nine years later, probably when stopped because he had a brake light out.

This case led me to read the charity Brake's take on "death by dangerous driving". This is a little bee I have in my bonnet. It's a pretty big bonnet.

Brake effectively state:

• that a bus driver working an extra shift (which may or may not have been his choice) who suffered a lapse of concentration and ran a red light, killing a teenager, should have been sentenced to far more than fifteen months in prison.
• that driving at 40mph in a 30mph zone should constitute "dangerous" driving rather than just speeding.
• that if you allow people to drive faster when no one else is on the road, you are imposing a "curfew" on other drivers.
• that if you overtake lots of times dangerously, this is no worse than overtaking once dangerously.
• pleading guilty should not reduce your sentence.

As I have ranted about before, I agree wholeheartedly with these and more. If you are tired and make a fatal mistake, you are a murderer and should never walk free from jail. If you speed, you are a murderer and should never walk free from jail. If you drive at 120mph on an empty motorway, you are infringing the human rights of others. All victims and witnesses of these incidents should be dragged through court in a full trial and guilty pleas are unacceptable no matter what the circumstances.

Last but not least, if we implemented all the above measures, no doubt awful things like this wouldn't happen any more:




Here's to a speedy recovery for the Hamster.






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