Uninsured driver hit cyclist in Dublin, fled scene gets community service

Fian

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

Judge would not allow the Garda introduce his knowledge of barring order into evidence - classifying it as hearsay! Defence applied for case to be struck out as there was no evidence the accused was unlawfully at the property or knew they were breaching a barring order. The judge agreeed. Case dismissed. What’s the point of a barring order if you can’t use its existence to prosecute for breaching it?
The same solicitor represented about 6 different people on the day.

Judge was right. Case has to be proven in accordance with the laws of evidence.

Our system is set up to vindicate the rights of the accused rather than victims: we have the presumption of innocence and it is for the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That may be annoying if you are the victim, not so much if you were innocent and accused. Which is the point.

I'm not really sure what the significance of the solicitor representing over 6 is?

Kaisr Sose

Fian wrote: »

Judge was right. Case has to be proven in accordance with the laws of evidence.

Our system is set up to vindicate the rights of the accused rather than victims: we have the presumption of innocence and it is for the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That may be annoying if you are the victim, not so much if you were innocent and accused. Which is the point.

I'm not really sure what the significance of the solicitor representing over 6 is?

The 6 related to further back - the conveyor system of justice and how a lot of money is made out of FLA.Read back if you wish.

Not to derail the thread on sidings, the charge was breach of barring order. Defendant was arrested at location they were bared from. Of course they have a right to innocence but the key reason for the charge and evidence of offence was ruled inadmissible. What the point of barring someone if that barring order has no merit further down the line?

Mercian Pro

CramCycle wrote: »

As a minimum, his license should have been pulled or the privilege of holding one in future, should have been taken from him for a set period of time.

As was pointed out to me on FB, the case is not finished yet. All sentencing will be imposed after the Community Service report is presented to the Court. It is still possible, and hopefully likely, that a lengthy driving ban will be imposed on Mr Rattigan.

Wishbone Ash

Mercian Pro wrote: »

.. It is still possible, and hopefully likely, that a lengthy driving ban will be imposed on Mr Rattigan.

If he was already driving around without a licence, insurance etc. will a driving ban make any difference to him?

ford2600

Fian wrote: »

Our system is set up to vindicate the rights of the accused rather than victims: we have the presumption of innocence and it is for the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That may be annoying if you are the victim, not so much if you were innocent and accused. Which is the point.

There is a cost to every hop of the ball being given to the Accused
*more guilty will walk
*more victims will go "fcuk it" and not report crime

The way criminal trials are set up make prosecutions really difficult.

Recently in Irish provincial town, 2 young lads getting into their car in supermarket car park, when they were assaulted by two mean and car hikacked and two young men effectively kidnapped. One was pretty badly beaten before they escaped. Pretty nasty 30 min ordeal.

Accused has right to turn down an identity parade, so Garda sat victim in car and he ID'd Accused as he left Garda station.

This prejudiced the lawful id of Accussed was court ruling. Both men with records as long as Kelly's palmares walked, but hey justice was done

While it is nice to visualise the very low chance of a miscarriage of justice, there is a real cost to that lofty ideal; a guarantee of more criminals walking and victims be left with no justice. Along with a public with no faith in criminal justice system.

With any crime, the family/friends of a victim do an effective deal with police/courts system. In any democracy that is a key glue keeping society together. Where it is weighed too far in favour Accused the wheels can start to come off.

While I don't see Gjakmarrja suddenly becoming a thing here, the scales needs to start moving the other way

doozerie

I've spent very little time in or around courts, for which I'm thankful as it is a sobering and depressing angle on what amounts to normal life for far too many in our society. I was called for jury service for a case in the Circuit Court a while back (dodged another bullet there as I thankfully wasn't called for a case in the Central Criminal Court, can't imagine what incidents you'd hear details of in the average case there).

The case related to a robbery, involving some violence, dating from over a year previously. It's very clinical listening to the evidence in that setting, you are so far removed from the reality (and date) of what must have been a harrowing experience that I think it is almost impossible to really relate to the victim. The jury found the accused innocent. A few of us disagreed so there was some discussion over the course of an hour or two. The discussion went round in circles but what surprised me most was the "reasoning" of some of those that considered the accused innocent. One of the things someone said stuck with me, she said "he looks like a nice fella" as one of the reasons to find him innocent. Some other people that were arguing he was guilty relented when they saw the time as they wanted to go home early and get the benefit of a half day off work. So discussion ended and he was found innocent.

It's a jury, by its nature every member will vote according to their own morals and their own prejudices. It's a lottery basically, unless there is very damning evidence, and even then I wonder. I've no idea of whether the "jury of your peers" aproach works on balance but I certainly wouldn't relish the prospect of being a victim of a crime that ended up in court and having to try to convince a jury of people some/many of whom might be so far removed from the reality of what I experienced that they couldn't possibly relate to my experience.

If I was the victim of a crime committed against me as a cyclist, given what seems like a general social prejudice against cyclists, I wonder whether I'd be starting from a deficit to begin with when it comes to seeming like a "valid" victim to a jury.

doozerie

More fundamentally though, I wonder about the effectiveness of various aspects of our criminal justice system. One of those aspects is prison. What's the purpose of prison?

For some it's clearly just a place where you put people to get them "away". If you could then throw away the key then I'm sure some people would advocate for that. But you can't, of course. In almost all cases the person imprisoned will be out again at some point and you have to wonder whether the prospect of going back to prison is a strong enough deterrent to convert them into conscientious members of society. That clearly isn't the case for many many people who have experienced prison, so what did prison achieve other than introducing them to a big group of people with potentially interesting skillsets to those who see most of society as no more than targets and potential victims?

For some prison is a means of rehabilitation, in prison you in theory have access to programmes to help you deal with some of the issues that led to you being there. From what I've read such programmes struggle with underfunding, overcrowded prisons poses another set of problems, society will always be prejudiced against you if you have a prison record anyway so you have another huge challenge to contend with afterwards, etc., etc. I don't know what the success rates are for rehabilitation, I'd like to think they are high but I wouldn't be surprised to find they are low.

Plus, the fact that many prisons seem to be overcrowded might also suggest that prisons simply are not working as a deterrent. An interesting quote from one former Mountjoy prison governor was essentially that you take a person's freedom away by putting them in prison, that's their punishment, if you compound that by taking away some of their basic human rights (he gave the need for "slopping out" as an example, that need arising because of overcrowding and an ancient prison building), then you are now helping shape someone that will likely never integrate back into a society that treated them as if they were scum.

I'm as shallow as anyone else, I'll read of someone being sent to prison for a nasty crime and I'll think it serves them right and hope that he doesn't enjoy his time in prison. But there is the broader, longer term, picture to consider too - if all that imprisoning someone achieves is to temporarily pause their criminal activity, then it's not "working".

I listened to a radio programme a few years back about an alternative approach to punishment being practiced in at least one city in the US. They reasoned that prison sentences were achieving nothing for them (worse, it created more drug addicts and drug dealers in particular) so they focused on community service as a punishment instead (subject to the crime of course but they covered a surprisingly broad range). As far as I can remember their reasoning was that community service might be a better approach to integrating you into the community rather than have the community shun you in the hope that you see the error of your ways. They made a very convincing argument. I don't know how it fared but it seemed like a very positive approach, at the very least it was thought-provoking.

Wishbone Ash

doozerie wrote: »

... The jury found the accused innocent...
......considered the accused innocent...
.... one of the reasons to find him innocent...
.... he was found innocent..

How can an accused be 'found innocent'? The cornerstone of our legal system is that an accused is deemed innocent unless proven guilty. One can't be proved innocent as the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

doozerie

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

How can an accused be 'found innocent'? The cornerstone of our legal system is that an accused is deemed innocent unless proven guilty. One can't be proved innocent as the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

You're right, it's a poor choice of phrase. Probably highlights my own prejudice because as far as I was concerned he was guilty.

magicbastarder

doozerie wrote: »

(dodged another bullet there as I thankfully wasn't called for a case in the Central Criminal Court, can't imagine what incidents you'd hear details of in the average case there).

i was no. 18 on a panel in the central criminal court, where no. 17 became the 12th juror. a close call in one sense, but my ego was disappointed. in the 'i reckon i'd make a good juror' sense.
my brother was sequestered once - case ended too late in the day for the jury to return what would look like a considered verdict.

Tombo2001

doozerie wrote: »

More fundamentally though, I wonder about the effectiveness of various aspects of our criminal justice system. One of those aspects is prison. What's the purpose of prison?
.

Notwithstanding that I wouldnt be looking to the US to guide anyone as regards prison systems, I nonetheless appreciate the point......

But again, the discussion is all about the perpetrator......as it so often is. The victim is quite literally forgotten in the discussion.

If I am the parent or sibling in this case, or the victim, I want to know that the person who did this will be punished.

Should they be?

If not, then there needs to be a major recalibration of how we approach the justice system.

What is justice? Does it mean that someone who commits a crime serves a punishment? What you've described indicate that it doesnt mean this; that someone who commits a crime serves an education. Because community service is not a punishment. Full stop, its not. It is quite literally a 'get out of jail' card.

Its something I've often thought about - if I was the victim here, would I even bother going to court. Because the stress of the injury, combined with the stress of a court case......which all leads to a sentence that is community service..... if I was the victim, or if they were in my family, it would leave me very very bitter about the justice system and to be honest about the country as a place to live.

doozerie

Tombo2001 wrote: »

What is justice? Does it mean that someone who commits a crime serves a punishment? What you've described indicate that it doesnt mean this; that someone who commits a crime serves an education. Because community service is not a punishment. Full stop, its not. It is quite literally a 'get out of jail' card.

I don't know how you can say that community service is not a punishment. Define punishment.

But more specifically, what in your view is achieved by sending someone to jail? (For certain crimes prison is the only option as far as I am concerned because I believe that certain behaviours or mindsets cannot be "reformed", but whether prison is a good option or simply the least worst option is debatable here too).

Regardless though, what's the best option for society? That someone gets locked away for a while and unleashed on society again, or that a different approach is made to make someone convicted of a crime a "better" member of society? Can the latter be achieved by the former?

As for the discussion focusing on the perpetrator, many of the comments in this thread have been focusing on prison and the perceived lack of "justice" (personally, I don't know what "justice" means and I imagine it'll mean different things in different circumstances), so the conversation is already focused entirely on the perpetrator. Whether a lengthy prison sentence for the perpetrator is of any benefit to the victim is entirely debatable but it seems to me that the victim needs support more than anything else and that's something that rarely gets mentioned in such discussions. Instead we focus on the punishment as if that'll somehow help the victim (it might in some cases, of course, but how can we as third parties really assess that, that's for the victim to determine).

Tombo2001

doozerie wrote: »

I don't know how you can say that community service is not a punishment. Define punishment.

But more specifically, what in your view is achieved by sending someone to jail? (For certain crimes prison is the only option as far as I am concerned because I believe that certain behaviours or mindsets cannot be "reformed", but whether prison is a good option or simply the least worst option is debatable here too).

Regardless though, what's the best option for society? That someone gets locked away for a while and unleashed on society again, or that a different approach is made to make someone convicted of a crime a "better" member of society? Can the latter be achieved by the former?

As for the discussion focusing on the perpetrator, many of the comments in this thread have been focusing on prison and the perceived lack of "justice" (personally, I don't know what "justice" means and I imagine it'll mean different things in different circumstances), so the conversation is already focused entirely on the perpetrator. Whether a lengthy prison sentence for the perpetrator is of any benefit to the victim is entirely debatable but it seems to me that the victim needs support more than anything else and that's something that rarely gets mentioned in such discussions. Instead we focus on the punishment as if that'll somehow help the victim (it might in some cases, of course, but how can we as third parties really assess that, that's for the victim to determine).

Its work in the community. People work in oxfam for free. People volunteer all the time. Punishment is something that is punitive. I dont see community service as being punitive.

As regards 'justice' - I dont think really you can talk about what outcomes should be, without a sense of what justice is. Its the justice system, operating under the Minister for Justice.......

I'm not saying that a punishment will help the victim. The counselling thing is a whole different argument, and I dont see how its part of this discussion. There can be counselling as well, by all means. My point is - a lack of justice, perceived or otherwise, is distressing for the victim.

Tombo2001

Nee.....ahead of the smackdown for 'derailing the conversation'....I will now bow out.

tomasrojo

I just want people who have unambiguously shown themselves to be outrageously negligent behind the wheel to have that privilege revoked as a matter of course.

Kaisr Sose

tomasrojo wrote: »

I just want people who have unambiguously shown themselves to be outrageously negligent behind the wheel to have that privilege revoked as a matter of course.

100%! They are doing this because there is little or no enforcement of traffic legislation. Let that situation be reversed!

I seen a guy playing a video game while driving two weeks ago in heavy AM commuting traffic. At the same time he was drifting in and out of the cycle lane.....what planet do these types live on?

ED E

tomasrojo wrote: »

I just want people who have unambiguously shown themselves to be outrageously negligent behind the wheel to have that privilege revoked as a matter of course.

The problem is for those who drive without any documents (Ins/Tax/NCT/Lic) having a driving ban is like wagging your finger at them. The only way to stop them driving in practice is to jail the cnuts.

tomasrojo

I think jail time is an option to punish people who drive while banned. Don't know how often it's used. I suspect seldom. It is, of course, very difficult to commit this offence by mistake, so mitigating circumstances are few. Or should be.

Steoller

What about seizing the vehicle of those who drive without documents, in lieu of jail time? That to me would be a huge deterrent, financially.

Weepsie

Steoller wrote: »

What about seizing the vehicle of those who drive without documents, in lieu of jail time? That to me would be a huge deterrent, financially.

That depends entirely. There'd be a lot going around in knackered out, beater cars that are only fit for scrap. If they lose it they'll just get another. Not paying insurance or tax anyway, so what's it to them.

RacoonQueen

ED E wrote: »

The problem is for those who drive without any documents (Ins/Tax/NCT/Lic) having a driving ban is like wagging your finger at them. The only way to stop them driving in practice is to jail the cnuts.

Steoller wrote: »

What about seizing the vehicle of those who drive without documents, in lieu of jail time? That to me would be a huge deterrent, financially.

Driving bans don't seem to be a deterrent anyway based on the garda traffic twitter account. They're always catching disqualified drivers. All they'll probably do is buy another car/borrow someone else if you take their car.
Then you'll get this ''how am I meant to get to work?'' etc crap as if driving is a human right...

Steoller

If the borrowed car gets seized too later, there won't be many lending to them after that.

el tel

ford2600 wrote: »

Punishment should not be just about the Accused and what is good for him/her.

It should send the message to victims; you matter.

It should send the message to society; this is what happens when you break this law.

Our criminal system is almost entirely about the Accused and his/her rights

this.

Pour encourager les autres

Kaisr Sose

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Driving bans don't seem to be a deterrent anyway based on the garda traffic twitter account. They're always catching disqualified drivers. All they'll probably do is buy another car/borrow someone else if you take their car.
Then you'll get this ''how am I meant to get to work?'' etc crap as if driving is a human right...

You will always get people who will breach a ban but driving is not a human right. Being safe or feeling safe in public society is more a human right.
Perhaps a ban on owning a motor vehicle is needed ? I think I heard of that sentence imposed in the UK for driving while disqualified. (Police Interceptor programme). They seized the car.

CramCycle

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

You will always get people who will breach a ban but driving is not a human right. Being safe or feeling safe in public society is more a human right.
Perhaps a ban on owning a motor vehicle is needed ? I think I heard of that sentence imposed in the UK for driving while disqualified. (Police Interceptor programme). They seized the car.

The garda twitter is hilarious. We all know that they are under resourced, so if you were to breach the rules, keeping your head down and a few changes to some habits would mean your chances of ever being caught are minimal.

Instead you have people with no tax, insurance or NCT, parking in Blue Badge spots, sometimes across two of them, doing 189kmph in a 100kmph zone and so on, and they are only the regular ones, not the comical ones that often appear.

Seizing and selling/destroying the car is the only real option, as well as a mark on anyone's name if they are banned that they cannot purchase a car through the CVO. Now it still has work arounds but you have to start somewhere.

ED E

tomasrojo wrote: »

so mitigating circumstances are few. Or should be.

Ahh but judge, I had a hard upbringing I did!

Steoller wrote: »

What about seizing the vehicle of those who drive without documents, in lieu of jail time? That to me would be a huge deterrent, financially.

As below, check donedeal for €300 cars.

Weepsie wrote: »

That depends entirely. There'd be a lot going around in knackered out, beater cars that are only fit for scrap. If they lose it they'll just get another. Not paying insurance or tax anyway, so what's it to them.

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Driving bans don't seem to be a deterrent anyway based on the garda traffic twitter account. They're always catching disqualified drivers. All they'll probably do is buy another car/borrow someone else if you take their car.
Then you'll get this ''how am I meant to get to work?'' etc crap as if driving is a human right...

Not unique to us to be fair, same happens in the UK all day. Disco drivers are a dime a dozen.

CramCycle wrote: »

Seizing and selling/destroying the car is the only real option, as well as a mark on anyone's name if they are banned that they cannot purchase a car through the CVO. Now it still has work arounds but you have to start somewhere.

A first step is ANPR at the entrance to all M and large N roads. Every time an undocumented car enters one "beep beep" in control, radio a car, intercepted in 5 minutes. Fish in a barrell.

If Garda/Govt IT weren't so inept we'd have such a system like the rest of europe has for a decade.

Kaisr Sose

ED E wrote: »

A first step is ANPR at the entrance to all M and large N roads. Every time an undocumented car enters one "beep beep" in control, radio a car, intercepted in 5 minutes. Fish in a barrell.

If Garda/Govt IT weren't so inept we'd have such a system like the rest of europe has for a decade.

This due for 2019. Funded and implemented by the Motor Insurance Industry.

It’s shocking the State is not funding this. So much wasted money and then they won’t spend money on worthwhile infastructure.

How long before the Garda cars go to single occupant with POV/CCTV ? We dont need two Garda in every car!

ED E

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

This due for 2019. Funded and implemented by the Motor Insurance Industry.

It’s shocking the State is not funding this. So much wasted money and then they won’t spend money on worthwhile infastructure.

How long before the Garda cars go to single occupant with POV/CCTV ? We dont need two Garda in every car!

Boston patrol cars have no less than five ANPR cameras on EACH CAR. We cant mange one on College Green to enforce a bus gate.

CramCycle

ED E wrote: »

Boston patrol cars have no less than five ANPR cameras on EACH CAR. We cant mange one on College Green to enforce a bus gate.

I have said this a hundred times before. None of this announcing measures. Buy a load of them, stick them up at the places we all know are really bad (or in fact, anywhere). Have no visible patrols in those areas for four weeks. Watch the outrage as people lose their licenses or their petrol money because they broke the law.

They would pay for themselves and then some.

ED E

CramCycle wrote: »

I have said this a hundred times before. None of this announcing measures. Buy a load of them, stick them up at the places we all know are really bad (or in fact, anywhere). Have no visible patrols in those areas for four weeks. Watch the outrage as people lose their licenses or their petrol money because they broke the law.

They would pay for themselves and then some.

Sure just offer the Gardai this money...

According to reports from the Daily Star, around 1,500 drivers are being caught out daily at the Bank station junction in London.

Seven cameras are monitoring the busy junction with expected revenue topping £16,000 an hour and almost £200,000 every day.