Many thanks for re-opening this thread Nigel. I only joined this forum a couple of days ago, after this topic had been locked by admin. I've asked Nigel to re-open it, as a lot of different views have been expressed on the matter, and I thought some of you might appreciate a view from the other side of the fence so to speak.
I am a Police Officer, with a long traffic background, and I work in the Burnley area. I wasn't on duty when little Levi was killed, and I didn't attend the scene, but I was on duty a few days later when Aqeel Hussain was arrested after handing himself in at Burnley Police Station. He was held in Police custody for 36 hours, during which I carried out 4 seperate interviews with him, totalling approximately 3 1/2 hours. In the subsequent weeks, I assisted in the investigation, helped prepare the file of evidence, and assisted with a video reconstruction of the events on the day.
Firstly, let me say that my colleagues and I were just as disgusted as everyone else at the sentence handed out to hussain. It was a sentence which in no way reflected the impact that this accident had on Levi's family, and was, quite rightly, heavily criticised in the press.
The circumstances of the accident were that Levi, her mother, and baby in pram had been into town, and were walking home. As they crossed a road on the outskirts of town, Levi was lagging a few feet behind her mother, and as mother was reaching the far kerb, Levi was still in the middle of the road, where she was struck by hussain's car. The car stopped very briefly, but then drove quickly away from the scene.
Right from the very start of the investigation - even before he'd been arrested, the intention had been to prosecute Hussain for causing death by dangerous driving - section 1 of the Road traffic act, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. As the investigation unfolded, we obtained statements describing Hussain's driving as "erratic", "stupid", and "aggressive". We discovered that the Golf TDI he was driving was a stolen one on false plates, that he was only a provisional licence holder, that he had no insurance, and of course, immediately after the accident, he drove away from the scene, abandoned the car, and went into hiding for 4 days.
In fairness to Hussain (and I say this through gritted teeth, as he doesn't deserve any fairness), he did eventually hand himself in, and he did admit being the driver at the time. He showed genuine remorse during the interviews (I know when people are faking, and he wasn't) and answered questions with a fair degree of honesty.
One line of questioning in particular stands out, and gives you a good example of the mentality of people like Hussain. I asked him if he had a full licence, and he admitted that he didn't - he only had a provisional licence. I asked him if he thought he was a good driver, and he said "yes, I'm a very good driver". I asked him how, if he'd never passed a test, could he consider himself to be a good driver? "I had some lessons a few years ago, and the instructor told me I was ready for my test".
We now come to the sticking point. The charges.
To prove dangerous driving (and therefore the S1 offence of causing death), it has to be proved that the defendants driving fell well below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver, and that it would be obvious to a competent and careful driver that driving in that manner was dangerous. Now, the accident took place outside a local 6th form college, and there were quite a few witnesses, but virtually all of them were non-drivers. There wasn't much at the scene for the accident investigator to work with, and just a small shot of the car before the accident, on the local CCTV, so the vast majority of our evidence came from these non-driving witnesses.
Despite this, we all felt there was a stong case for a charge of S1, and we were confident that the CPS would agree with us, and permit a charge for the more serious offence.
This didn't happen. The prosecutor decided that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Hussain's driving was dangerous, and that we could only charge him with careless driving (along with the other offences previously mentioned). Careless driving is a much easier offence to prove, as the defendents driving only has to be shown to be below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver. There is no offence of causing death by careless driving (apart from whilst drunk), and the defendant is only ever prosecuted according to his manner of driving - not the outcome.
Needless to say, this was a huge disappointment. We'd all worked long and hard to get the right outcome from this investigation, and a charge of careless driving wasn't what we'd been aiming for. If nothing else, we felt that it should at least have been put in front of a jury for them to make the final decision, but that was not to be.
Hussain's solicitor must have thought her ship had come in - he pleaded guity at the first opportunity, and was dealt with by the local Magistrates. Their worships have to give a defendant credit for an early guilty plea, and it would appear that the 12 week sentence was the absolute maximum that they could impose. The chair of the bench actually apologised in court to the Bleasdale family for the length of the sentence. Hussain was also disqualified from driving for 5 years.
As for some of the comments about Hussain's ethnic background - I can assure everyone that this had no bearing on events whatsoever. The sentence would have been the same whatever colour, nationality or religion the driver had been.
A couple of post scripts to the story. About a week after the sentence was passed, Levi's grandfather - who had been a central figure for the Family Liason officer - sadly died. It isn't know exactly what he died from yet, but I can't imagine the stress of the past few months had done him any good.
And secondly, as is becoming usual practice in these cases, a roadside "shrine" quickly appeared at the scene - flowers, cards, little teddies etc. A local scrote was caught stealing one of the teddies from this shrine, and was convicted of the theft a couple of months later. His sentence?
8 months in prison.
Someone's priorities are wrong.
I can assure you that I've written nothing but facts in this post - I'll leave it up to you to decide what went wrong.
British Justice?
Topic Options
m3tiko wrote:
