English Justice Anomalies

Jim_Jupiter

patman99 wrote: »

Yes, the Magistrates Court can throw-up some strange outcomes.
A couple of years back, the following 2 cases were reported in my local rag -

Case 1
Man is caught drink-driving (he was over the limit by 5Mg and was driving a small child's pedal car that he had converted to run off batteries. He was driving it across a cul-de-sac to his friends house to show him the finished project). He got an 18 month ban & a £250 fine.

Case 2
A woman gets caught dropping her 2 kids off at school whilst 4 times the legal limit. She was driving an MPV. She got a 12 month ban & a £125 fine.

So, to sum up. You can get rat-ar5ed and drive down the road in a vehicle capable of 100 mph & get a 1 year ban, or, drive across a cul-de-sac in a battery operated car with a top speed of 4 mph whilst only just above the limit & get an extra 50% long ban & twice the fine.

Common sense?. Go figure.

That's simply not true -

First case, 5 over the legal limit the ban length is 12-16 months.

Second case - if she was 4 times the legal limit (which is 35 micrograms in 100 milimetres of breath, so she was 140 micrograms) the minimum ban a magistrate could have imposed is 29 months. In fact a custodial sentence would have likely been the outcome.