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?

Again, why does there have to be an innocent person standing in the dock? Why can't all the issues be left to an inquest to explore?

Absolutely shocked at some of the posters baying for this woman to be punished for having a medical emergency that caused this.. What’s actually wrong with people.

You have NO evidence that people on here who disagree with you lack empathy for the family. If anything, it is way more empathetic to accept that it would be actively cruel to put the family through another court process that cannot possibly give them what they want. They understandably feel it would help them if someone were at fault and that person could be duly tried and penalised, but the simple fact is that no-one is at fault. Therefore a court hearing would entail them sitting there reliving in horrible detail how their children were injured, what exactly those injuries were, what happened to them afterwards and how they died - only to be told again at the end of the process that no-one was at fault.

Are you really so empathetic when you insist on putting them through that? I get it that it is what they say they want, but the reality is that they cannot be given what they want, and never will be.

She doesn't empathise with them, so they can go hang, obviously.

This. What they want is their children back or failing that someone to blame.

In this case they can’t have that and dragging the matter out and plastering the graphic details all over the press won’t help them in the slightest.

Auriol Grey was charged because there was evidence showing that there was a case to answer. There isn't any such evidence in this case.

Me too. Some of it seems weirdly focussed on the driver’s car and wealth. People don’t deserve to be punished just because they’re rich. Some people also seem to not understand epilepsy, saying they thought you were born with it and so implying the lady must have had previous seizures, which is simply not true. Others think everyone has warnings of seizures, but that’s not true either. Other people can’t understand that “no prior seizures” does not mean she didn’t have a seizure that day.

Sadly, a not insignificant number of people think this driver should be punished because two children have died even though this wasn’t her fault. They can’t articulate why she should be punished, but are set on putting her through some new court procedure of a form as yet undetermined. It’s pathetic and very worrying.

The CPS haven't proven she's innocent, they have just realised they're unlikely to be able prove a crime has been committed so they're not going to bother.

What crime do you think she's committed then? Please name it, because I'd really love know.

Had the police and CPS been involved, the Post Office scandal wouldn't have bloody happened! This is not the slam-dunk you think!

No, not for involuntary manslaughter.

There has to be negligence or recklessness though, which doesn’t apply with someone who has never had a seizure before but suddenly has one behind the wheel.

Edited to say: it’s why she could be charged if she’d had a history of seizures but hidden them rather than reporting them. In that case, driving would be reckless. There is no evidence that occurred so no case to answer.

The families are not ok with the process outcome. Just like the Nottingham families. That’s my starting point for my opinion.

The families are not ok with the outcome is no legal basis for putting someone on trial though, surely you can see that?

So what do you say should happen to make them OK with it? Just saying "There should be a court case" doesn't work because they still wouldn't be OK with the inevitable result of that case. Or are you saying that the driver should be imprisoned regardless of the fact that she didn't commit any offence?

That doesn’t mean the driver has committed a crime.

The families are not ok with the process outcome. Just like the Nottingham families. That’s my starting point for my opinion.

The Nottingham case was very, very different. For a start the mental health problems with Calocane were known about, there was a warrant out for his arrest from a previous assault in 2021he was also being investigated for two other assaults.

There were dreadful failings in that case by the NHS Mental Health Services and the Police and the families of the Calocane are right to be extremely upset about the case, if the authorities had done what they should have done he would not have been on the streets.

I understand the families in Nottingham are upset that Calocane faced manslaughter charges due to diminished responsibility not murder charges. The man was clearly very mentally disturbed.

Totally different to this case.

The law in England and Wales does not allow individual victims to influence the actions of the courts.

Prosecutions are conducted on behalf of the Crown, not the victim, with a focus on objective testing of evidence, rather than emotion.

And that is how it should be.

@ButterCrackers You say: "The families are not ok with the process outcome". Just like the Nottingham families. That’s my starting point for my opinion.
Can you or anyone else give any information on what they or their legal advisors have specifically said about being dissatisfied. A witness not being interviewed perhaps?

We all accept that bereaved families will be beyond being unhappy or angry and we sympathise. That does not give them special knowledge or wisdom in dealing with the cause of their suffering.
We have two separate organisations that are independent and as impartial as is possible. The Police investigated the condition of the vehicle, speed etc. They also took advice from neuro-specialists. All of this evidence was reviewed by CPS. As there had been no reason for the driver to anticipate a seizure there is no case to bring against anyone. Neither have I seen criticism of the car.

The problem that some people are having on this thread is that yes a terrible terrible accident occured with tragic outcomes. But however awful the outcome, the woman involved did not wilfully commit a crime. It was a truly awful accident. It was outside her control.

Nothing, but nothing is going to lessen the grief of those affected. Everybody on this thread has deep sympathy for the victims. But you cannot prosecute a person if no actual crime was committed.

They act like the court system is just another version of the Jeremy Kyle show

Christ on a bike, there's so much rubbish in that I don't know where to start; but having read your contributions to this thread there's not much point addressing your points anyway.

I don’t know the processes

That's bloody obvious.

Ok, no, you can't really say that. CPS doesn't act as a court of law. Essentially they bring forward a case if there's sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction, and if a case is in the public interest. Realistically public opinion also factors into the latter.

So, negligence and recklessness are both pretty complex concepts. The quantitative (remit / extent) and qualitative (eg foresight, virtual certainty) elements of their definitions have morphed a lot over years of case law, and still remain the subject of debate before.

The facts of this case have also not been held up to scrutiny (in a legal sense, not by the police), eg did she ever experience really mild symptoms but write them off?

That's of course assuming the need for some kind of moral responsibility, in an entirely subjective layman sense. In any case, there here have been precedents where people with less moral responsibility (again in a non-legal layman sense) than this woman have been found guilty, for many reasons eg causation, policy, binding precedent, weight of future precedent on dissimilar but adjacent cases.

Also, there are conceivably two ways this could go if she were to be let off – one would be lacking the necessary elements in the first place, and the other would be being found guilty. It's not as simple as it looks. So really all the people on this thread acting as judges are making me feel quite taken aback...

To add to what has been said by @friendlycat and others. There is no missing evidence. Nothing from the investigation point of view is difficult. Police, Medical Specialists are all giving information within their usual operating experience. A question is asked, it is answered. There is nothing further to be discovered. It does not need a Grand Jury in the US way or an Inquiry like was started for Grenfell.
If someone can help me on this. All that is known has been passed to the Coroner and an Inquest will be convened. Am I right?

Bloody hell some of the posts on here are batshit.

It was an accident, they happen and in this case it resulted in a horrible tragedy. All the "send her to court" type posts are ridiculous. What crime has this woman committed? She didn't wake up that morning and think "oh I know what I'll drive this car I'm perfectly entitled to drive, crash it into a school, take away the lives of 2 young children and throw in an epileptic seizure for good measure". It could have been anyone of us so I'm guessing those baying for blood would be totally fine with having to appear in court on a non-existent charge for something they did that was beyond their control. FFS get a grip.

Sorry, typos abound!

1. still remain the subject of debate today
2. 2 ways for her to be let off: one would be lacking the necessary elements in the first place, and the other would be being found guilty but having a defense

I'm not baying for blood, just irritated at the lack of legal understanding