Hughes, R. v

Summary

Trinty Term
[2013] UKSC 56
On appeal from: [2011] EWCA Crim 1508

JUDGMENT

R v Hughes (Appellant)

before

Lord Neuberger, President
Lord Mance
Lord Kerr
Lord Hughes
Lord Toulson

JUDGMENT GIVEN ON

31 July 2013

Heard on 5 June 2013

Appellant
Robert Smith QC
C J Knox
(Instructed by John Donkin Solicitors)

Respondent
John Price QC
Sarah Whitehouse
(Instructed by CPS Appeals Unit)

LORD HUGHES AND LORD TOULSON, delivering the judgment of the court

This case concerns the true ambit of the new offence created by section 3ZB of the Road Traffic Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act"). This new section was added by section 21(1) of the Road Safety Act 2006 ("the 2006 Act"). It provides:

"3ZB Causing death by driving: unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured drivers.

A person is guilty of an offence under this section if he causes the death of another person by driving a motor vehicle on a road and, at the time when he is driving, the circumstances are such that he is committing an offence under-

(a) Section 87(1) of this Act (driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence);

(b) Section 103(1)(b) of this Act (driving while disqualified), or

(c) Section 143 of this Act (using a motor vehicle while uninsured or unsecured against third party risks)."

On conviction on indictment, this offence carries imprisonment for up to two years.

On a late Sunday afternoon in October 2009 the defendant Mr Hughes was driving his family in his camper van. They were on their way home from a motor sports event. The road was the A69 single-carriageway trunk road which runs more or less due west from Newcastle-upon-Tyne towards Carlisle. Mr Hughes and his family were travelling east towards Newcastle. The speed limit was the national limit of 60 mph. His driving was faultless, and his speed a steady 45-55 mph. As he rounded a right-hand bend on his correct side of the road he was confronted by a motor car driven by a Mr Dickinson in the opposite direction. Mr Dickinson's car was veering all over the road; it twice crossed to its wrong side and it smashed into Mr Hughes's camper van, tipping it over and trapping some of the occupants inside. The oncoming driver, Mr Dickinson, suffered injuries in the impact which proved fatal.

Without saying any more it would be apparent that the collision was entirely the fault of Mr Dickinson. As it transpired, he was under the influence of heroin, as well as overtired. He worked at a power station at Largs on the west coast of Scotland. He had worked a series of 12 hour night shifts. That Sunday he had driven from Largs to Newcastle and was on his way back, a round trip of something like 400 miles, of which he had completed about 230. He was a drug user. He was maintained on a prescription dose of methadone, no doubt as a substitute for heroin, but on this day blood analysis proved that he…

JUDGMENT

31 July 2013

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