The driver in the Wimbledon school accident won't be charged?

[RiverF]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4448xx4keo

It sounds like a unavoidable and unforeseeable medical incident led to the tragedy, but the families wanted justice.

I can't begin to imagine their pain, but this is the right decision?

This was my experience of being on a jury too. It was a very clear-cut verdict in our case but we spent hours trying to explain extremely basic logic to people (eg 'His blood on the weapon means that it really is safe to assume this is the correct weapon')

Terrifying.

Although my experience of county court with a single judge was no better. It came down to my word against his and she decided he was telling the truth (he wasn't). I was only saved from injustice because of a third party report that sided with me. The judge was very clearly pissed off that she had to find in my favour.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

It's weird, I agree! The idea that just because she's wealthy she must've paid off all the experts who then lied to the police and CPS – therefore perjuring themselves – on her behalf is proper tin foil hat mentality.

@Summerose - how can there be criminal responsibility, if what happened was completely outside the driver's control? She had no idea she was going to have a seizure, and according to what I have read, it was her first seizure - so she had no idea it was going to happen.

Your analogy with the person with mental illness who stabs people would only be correct if she had known ahead of time that she was prone to seizures, and drove anyway.

Unless you can tell us how to prevent an entirely unforeseeable event - a practical measure that this woman could have taken, before getting behind the wheel, that would have prevented her having her first ever seizure, then unfortunately there is no crime here.

You could have your first ever seizure tomorrow - epilepsy can occur at all ages with no family history (30-40% of epilepsy is caused by genetic predisposition, and even then, both parents can have the predisposition but not have had any seizures, so they don't know they are genetically predisposed until their child is diagnosed with epilepsy and they have genetic testing) - and there is nothing you could do now that would prevent it. So will you still get behind the wheel tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that?

I live in SW London near Wimbledon Common. There are lorries everywhere all day every day!

Maybe we can make tank SUVs exclusive to your part of Wimbledon, if there's more lorries than cars it makes little difference

Where I live also SW, we don't have that, it's normal family cars, buses and the odd lorry for the local supermarket. We don't need more tanks here

It’s a horrendous situation all round.

Epilepsy is one of the most common serious neurological conditions in the world. It affects around 630,000 people in the UK.
This means that around 1 in 100 people in the UK have epilepsy. Around 80 people are diagnosed with epilepsy in the UK every day.

Epilepsy charities, like this one linked, have some good information, including practical stuff that you can do to help anyone around you that is having a seizure.

This is why toilets should always have that space at the bottom of the doors. There are around 9 children in an average secondary school with epilepsy (some will start having seizures as teens) but more and more schools are going for full privacy. Sometimes people feel a bit weird before a seizure and may go to the loo thinking they may be sick. But sometimes it just happens out the blue.

https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/what-is-epilepsy

It's the same thing isn't it? This mentality that because something tragic has happened, somebody must be found to be at fault.

Sometimes something awful happens and it's nobody's fault but some people struggle to accept this. They need a villain.

mmm..

Whilst proving a seizure has happened is not all that clear cut, there can be zero evidence after a short while...

They'd also need to prove there was no other cause... mechanical fault/failure, alcohol, etc etc.

I can just about see that someone with a very expensive legal team and perhaps some relevant medical buddies/contacts could swing an 'it was a seizure' defence...

However... no one drives into a school playground with their SUV without some reason.

It must be the absence of evidence of any other cause and the medical evidence, that has provided this defence. And looking for those potential alternative causes, as well as examining the medical stuff, would likely take a long while.

I haven’t read the entire thread but just wanted to say if she had been driving a VW Up, for example, they may have stood a better chance.

That may be the case. But as driving a large car isn’t actually a crime, that doesn’t change the fact that there is no criminal responsibility in this case and therefore no charges to be brought.

Indeed.

i think there is also a question of which came first, crash or seizure. Ie Is it not possible that a seizure is the result of impact to drivers head in the crash. I wouldn’t think that is possible to establish (please someone expert say if medically it is, I’m not claiming any knowledge). Again, it’s a question that families involved have asked.

I think a lot of the many many people affected by this do not want “blame” and it will not help them in dealing with the awful aftermath of what they witnessed. They just want some answers to reasonable questions, and do not feel they have been given them. I don’t see what is wrong with that (particaurly as they are asking these questions of the police and the investigation, not of the woman herself).

I can just about see that someone with a very expensive legal team and perhaps some relevant medical buddies/contacts could swing an 'it was a seizure' defence...

She would've been made to undergo medical assessments by the police's own independent examiners. So unless you're saying she paid off everyone involved, from the SIO down, this is nonsense.

Such a sad story. She’ll have to live with an awful guilt. Feel very sad for everyone involved.

I don't think anyone's suggested she should be charged because she was driving an unreasonably large car, but that if there are to be learnings from this tragedy, that's one thing to look at.

I'm not a medical expert but is it the case that they can prove a seizure happened, or could the results have been inconclusive? Because if it's the latter and there's no way to prove it, that could explain why the case wasn't taken forward?

Also, if someone blacked out before and continued driving without seeking medical help, technically they have a clear record.

It just feels weird that the parents would choose to believe negligence rather than an accident

It’s the former, conclusive medical evidence she had a seizure and her first one.

It’s all so sad and terrible.

Has she been banned for life from driving?

Automatism, I wasn’t in control, as a legal defence is treated differently to automatism due to insanity. In the first instance it absolves the perpetrator of legal responsibility. In the second it’s obviously in the public interest that someone who harms others due to their mental illness is prevented from causing further harm.

She will be the subject to the same driving rules as other epilepsy sufferers, I imagine. Which is that you can’t drive if you have had a seizure in the previous 12 months. Whether she’ll ever want to drive again is another matter, though.

CPS are bonkers - definitely in the public interest to have this trial.

The CPS is apparently convinced by the expert evidence that she is innocent. OK, let the public see this evidence at trial and they can be convinced as well.

Otherwise it's all too convenient. If the lady doesn't have a seizure for a year she will even get her license back!

I agree with this. Someone I know had a seizure completely out of the blue a few years ago, she was at home at the time with her baby and luckily had her DH with her. If she’d been driving she could have crashed the car.
There was no clear reason for the seizure, she hasn’t had a repeat and has been told she may never have another.

That’s not how it works.

You wanting a public witch hunt does not equal "in the public's interest."

"The driver has voluntarily surrendered her licence and, following her diagnosis, will need to be a year free of any seizures before she can reapply to the DVLA for her licence again."

https://www.cps.gov.uk/london-north/news/statement-decision-not-charge-relation-fatal-collision-study-prep-school