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?

One article said she hadn't had anymore. If it's a legit diagnosis, then fine. I'm just saying this diagnosis needs to be proven in court.

That poor woman. She can go on and live her life with her family/children. The parents can not and neither can the mother who was injured with life changing injuries. The one thing that seems to pop out of this thread is the sympathy for the lady who maybe had a seizure and maybe racked with guilt for life (yes that would be devastating agreed) but apart from a few posts sympathising with the actual deaths and injuries they seem to have been forgotten! Wonder why that is. Maybe their not relevant to the discussion and I missed something.

But you need an alternative viewpoint in order to challenge it. I’m assuming that the medical experts in this case all agreed with each other. If they didn’t, then it may well have gone to trial.

How can a diagnosis be proven in court, other than by a medical expert stating that the condition has been diagnosed? Exactly the same information that would have been provided to the CPS.

I thought this, do people really need to drive these huge things around towns. Maybe just maybe one or both children could have been injured but survived.

Please link to the article.

You do know that in cases such as these, the police and CPS will use independent medical experts to verify her diagnosis – they wouldn't just take her word for it, or the word of her doctor. It would be confirmed independently.

Unless you think the police and CPS expert witnesses like to perjure themselves for suspects and lie on their behalf?

"Whatever people get charged with when they've driven into a school? Dangerous driving?"

But that's the point. Dangerous driving isn't in point as she had seizure. She'd never had one before. Therefore not dangerous driving. Dangerous driving would be knowingly getting behind the wheel with a history of seizures (in the past year)

Why should she be?

I suspect, if it were me, I would never drive a car again. But having one unforeseeable seizure whilst driving is not in itself a reason to ban someone from driving forever.

Of course I'm not against trial by jury, @Berringtons - please show me where I said that I was!

And if the CPS does not think you have a case to answer, why would you need the defence evidence? The CPS examines all the evidence from the investigation of the alleged crime and if that evidence does not support a prosecution, what point is there in having one?

As I said, if every case went to trial, the justice system would collapse.

And which the CPS would have independently verified or disputed by a separate medical expert.

I realise this wasn't addressed to me, and want to be clear that it's a principle I'm talking about here rather than this particular case which I don't have the full details about, but for most to be satisfied with the role of the CPS it has to be seen to work properly and I'm not sure that's the case

For full disclosure I've known folk who've worked within it, and while anecdotes aren't evidence they're adamant that the culture's absolutely impossible and procedures chaotic with almost no accountability for improvement - one reason, perhaps, why they struggle to recruit the brightest and the best?

I haven't read that anywhere. They don't pull a diagnosis out of thin air. My child's diagnosis took 6mths.

Cars are being made safer now really. Tesla for example would have stopped the car before hitting people, emergency braked and parked the car safely. Sometimes bad things happen but I’m sure in the future things will get better regarding this specific case.

I don’t entirely disagree, but the subject of whether the CPS is fit for purpose is entirely separate to the discussion as to whether this case should go to trial despite the CPS deciding that no crime has been committed. Some posters on here seem to think the CPS can just be overruled in cases that they decide they want to see the ‘evidence’ for. But seem to think that the Crown, who don’t think a crime has been committed, should still be prosecuting the case.

But they do establish whether there's a criminal cause or it's natural causes etc?

If that was the criterion for prosecution, the waiting list for trials would stretch into decades. No evidence that you did this theft? Tough, let a jury decide! Evidence that you were 100 miles away at the time? Let the public see that evidence! DNA evidence showing that the sperm on the victim after the rape came from someone else and no DNA evidence at all from you? Let's have a trial and let the public see all that! Evidence from a film and several witnesses that the victim died because a piece of rock detached spontaneously from a cliff and it was sheer chance that you were walking near at the time? We've still got to put you through a trial that we know is a total waste of time because some people think it's in the public interest.

Now, that really would be bonkers.

No, they establish the medical cause of death.

It's really worrying how many people think the criminal justice system should be replaced with some sort of public opinion based vengeance system.

The whole point of a crime is that someone has to have actually done something wrong. We don't assign criminality according to the seriousness of the outcome, otherwise every fatal accident would lead to the survivors being prosecuted, no matter what.

Having your first ever epileptic seizure is not morally or legally wrong, unless we think that people are to blame for their own illnesses and disabilities. In which case, maybe back in my twenties, when I found out that my friend had died during his first ever epileptic seizure, I should have shrugged and said 'Serves him right. At least he only killed himself and no one else.' And before someone tells me that's a ridiculous comparison, it's exactly the point. Either something is a crime, or it isn't. Either having a seizure when you've never had one before is a crime, or it isn't.

And for all the armchair conspiracy theories, I worked in the criminal justice system for many years, including on a couple of very similar cases. I can guarantee that the police didn't just pull this conclusion out of their arses after sitting on them for a year, not bothering to investigate. If the medical evidence was less than conclusive, they would have charged her and let her defence team produce any further evidence at trial.

Some of the people who are clamouring for consequences and for this poor woman to be 'held to account' would have been right at the front of the crowds gathered to throw things at women in the village stocks.

What would be the point? Just the satisfaction of putting her in the dock even though the CPS know that they don't have remotely enough evidence to convict?

For a start we need control on these massive, heavy SUVs. An additional licence category for cars over a certain size and weight. It’s really not on people can pass their test in a Nissan Micra and be immediately able to drive something 3 times the size and weight.

If someone has a medical episode that causes them to lose consciousness, it’s only right that person loses their privilege to drive until it’s satisfactory they are no longer a risk. Perhaps a minimum of 2 years without an episode.

They're not unknown in Wimbledon, she is not the only person to be driving around in one.

These rules re driving with epilepsy/other medical issues that can impair you while driving already exist.

Not only do they not have enough evidence to convict, they have expert medical evidence which says she suffered from an unexpected seizure and had no reason to believe that such an event would occur. It would be a very short trial.

What would there be to gain by prosecution of the driver? She didn't want to do it. She didn't mean to do it. She doesn't have the mens rea
No previous convictions etc

It's a tragic accident.

Of course it’s the right decision. The poor woman will be tortured by this for the rest of her days.