School car crash - are the police being thrown under the bus?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15732723/Police-biased-female-killed-girls-crash-Wimbledon.html

I remember starting a thread on this some time ago and I think the general conclusion was that epilepsy (undiagnised) would in all likelihood be the reason for this tragedy given the cirumstances. there was a long discussion about the nature of this consition.

There was also the feeling that the parents should grieve and let go after this tragedy yet it appears the thing has escalated to involve racism and questioning of the investigation resulting to my mind the police being pressured to make another arrest simply because the senior met didn't like the optics of this rather than material change in circusrance.

Are those investigating officers being thrown.under the bus because the met politically would like to see something done here with a rich white woman being talked when there seems to be no evidence at all she didn't have a seizure? If it realistically can't be proven a seizure didn't occur aren't we headed for a painful trial for the parents where they gain will feel justice won't be done???

No this is nonsense.

This whole case is off.

If claire was a poor black or asian man with no fancy lawyers and those were white children she would have been charged and a minimum. I say that as a white person.

The epilepsy defence is total "expensive lawyer" bullshit and I dont know how that woman squares the circle of her disgusting judgement that resulted in the murder of those poor children.
Presumably she doesnt have children or a conscience.

Nuria Sajjad and Selena Lau's parents must be trapped in a living nightmare which the siblings are also somehow surviving through...

I wish Mrs freemantle (and her fancy house which she interior designed and bragged about it a magazine which her fancy lawyers then scrubbed from the internet) no health, no happiness and no peace.

@PolkaDotPorridge absolutely right. If it was a one off seizure even, I would never be able to get in a car again. Honestly think I would become a recluse.

Those poor girls and their families.

OP I think given the deaths of two 8 year olds crushed by a car that your thread title ‘are the police being thrown under the bus’ is insensitive.

This case simply proves that if you are rich enough you can pay a private doctor and a good solicitor to say anything that gets you out of trouble. There is no way of proving that she actually had a seizure at the wheel after the fact! Also if she now has a diagnosis of epilepsy why is she still driving?

Your prejudice is showing

Fixed your sentence for you

The point is that it was undiagnosed epilepsy and a first known episode which can happen. How could this be disproven in court if a neurologist took to the stand and said this is a possibility....hence the CPS being reluctant to take action her lawyers used this to create doubt and obfuscate the investigation

I partly agree with the wealthy woman element. People are forgetting the girls were at a private school, so their parents could also have been wealthy.

No.
as someone who makes good money via PAYE i can confirm....Being able to rustle up 30k pa after tax for private school is not the same as the level of wealth this woman and her husband enjoy ( i say this based on experience and their house)

No idea about this case

Refreshing to hear someone say this. me neither.

The speculation and the certainty as to what has happened - on both ‘sides’ - is really depressing.

I do know someone who had a car crash and woke to find herself in hospital. Turned out she had cancer and it had gone to her brain. She had no idea prior to the accident. Fortunately she didn’t hit anyone.

Unless the lady has had so many years seizure free since the accident, I’m surprised she’s driving as well.

Surely though it is not a crime to be wealthy or to hire good lawyers? I think some of the posts on this thread show even if a trial were to take place it is far from certain a jury won't be prejudicial especially as we have now dragged race into this investigation which certainly want a factor at the outset.

Your argument in itself does not make sense. If the reason for the accident is an undiagnosed first epilepsy episode whether suspected or confirmed, then she shouldn't be driving afterwards.

Realistically no one apart from those involved have any idea how the investigation was carried out. The parents are concerned that it wasn’t done well and it is right that it is reopened. I wouldn’t be surprised if unconscious bias wasn’t at play.

It just shows you what fancy lawyers can do!

Sigh. Have you forgotten that this is the Met Police under investigation? Who time after time have been proven to treat victims of crime differently dependent on their race? That force is rotten to the core.

Their track record leads me to believe the families of the children killed were treated differently. I hope they finally get truth and justice.

Oh, and while you’re hand wringing about the impact on the poor driver who has to live with what they did, maybe you could find some empathy and kindness for the mother of one of the girls that died, who continues to endure surgeries for injuries she sustained that day.

If your beautiful young daughter had been killed would you think it was time to let it lie?

I'm afraid something seemed suspect about this case to me right from the start.... This woman had never had a seizure before in her life and happened to have the first one while behind the wheel of her huge range rover and ploughed into a school killing two children?!

I also think of it were me I'd be absolutely terrified to get behind the wheel of a car again, ever. I'd flat out refuse. The thought it could ever, ever happen again and I could hurt another person would be enough for me to never want to drive again. I think it would take 10,20 years to be even tempted to try!

I think that the 'mob mentality' isn't on one 'side' or the other -- it lies in the online rumination about this case that (as with other cases that capture the public imagination) leads to people sleuthing, speculating, making themselves angry, building narratives that caricature all of the people involved in a tragedy.

We've seen how much extra devastation can be caused to families by this kind of insensitive, sensationalising chat, and how it can create problems for the police.

Better to find other ways of passing the time.

You can drive if you have epilepsy / seizures. It has to be declared to the DVLA and then you have to have been seizure free for at least a year I think.

But would you want to, when a seizure had caused you to kill 2 beautiful children?!

I wouldn't. It would eat me up inside knowing it could happen again. Especially living in London where public transport, taxis, all readily available as an alternative.
And I certainly wouldn't be driving such a huge car - if I absolutely had to continue driving I'd have swapped to a really small, low powered engine car which had as many safety systems as I could have like automatic braking etc I'd want to be reducing the risk of a similar incident as much as I possibly could.

But she continued to drive. And that's part of the upset and things that looked suss. She did not stop driving after the accident.

My sister developed epilepsy in her late 40s. Her first seizure came totally out of the blue. She had to send her driving licence away and didn't get it back until she'd been medicated and seizure-free for a year. This is standard procedure.

If the woman was back in her car after a shorter time period, this suggests that she wasn't diagnosed with epilepsy.

If there is evidence of an undiagnosed episode why on gods earth was she driving a beast of a car that could cause such horrifying damage.

Why not drive a smaller car that could have had less impact in case something happened. Why not be sensible and take precautions rather than have a 2 ton car that resulted in the death of two children.

Well if she was driving illegally after an epileptic seizure and hasn't been arrested isn't there maybe just the hint that she was driving lawfully under condtion?

I actually agree with the car mass/size argument and maybe that should be looked at going forward but is just seems to be another angle of 'rich white successful woman with a big car of course she's guilty' argument.

Would you let it lie if it were your child had been killed by a driver who said they had suffered epileptic fit for the very first time, without a shred of evidence this is actually what happened?
Even if the undiagnosed condition is true, it doesn't mean that this is what occurred on the day.

The Independent investigation should happen and then victims can have some comfort that all has been done.
The driver can also have her named cleared beyond doubt should she be found innocent.

The Met has a history of racism, deep seated.

I remember the Guinness Trial, jailed then released because "experts" said he had dementia, weeks later, made the worlds first "relapse" from this disease....

The very wealthy have a habit of using the law to their own advantage.

I honestly don’t know. Where I live there is no public transport and I have kids. I think I’d have to try driving again or move house.

If she was driving again soon after the incident against medical advice then that would be very wrong. I’m just not sure if that’s true or not.

This.

Not really sure why @mids2019 has so much conviction of a witch hunt when it appears that something must have gone wrong in the investigating of this accident which has not been allowed to be swept under the carpet.