Should This Alcoholic Have Been Spared Jail?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5253629/Doctor-escapes-prison-drink-driving-twice.html

[murraymints]

nope..what are the odds it will happen again ?

[douglas9401]

Something about not knowing all the facts available to the court and blah blah blah.

A pretty face and a bit of education tends to impress the bench. Much more than, say, a tyre fitter from a broken home.

[Eleena]

Absolutely not. Educated??

[mccfluff]

i think she should be sent to inpatient rehab, don't think jail will do anything for her, she needs help with her addiction.

[Gromit]

She was not / is not an alcoholic.

Sounds like no one was hurt n the first incident.

Her second offence she was not on the public highway.

So I reckon the sentence is right.

(Not sure what the news angle is on this or why it is in the paper ? )

[murraymints]

as do thousands of other drivers banned/jailed for repeat drink driving... social standing /status should never be used as mitigation..especially as she re-offended whilst on bail for the first offence !!

[murraymints]

and..the empty bottle was IN the car.... nope, double standards...

[emmie]

a community service and a spell in rehab,

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// She was not / is not an alcoholic. ///

A person addicted to alcohol is an alcoholic.

/// A talented junior doctor who was arrested twice for drink-driving has avoided jail after claiming she had developed an addiction due to the 'stress' of studying. ///

She even attended classes for her addition.

She committed another drink driving offence while on bail for a previous offence. Surely that in itself deserves a custodial sentence?

/// (Not sure what the news angle is on this or why it is in the
paper ? ) ///

So you don't even think that this case should have been reported on?
Amazing, absolutely amazing.

(Not sure what the news angle is on this or why it is in the paper ? )

[Gromit]

// So you don't even think that this case should have been reported on? //

I fail to spot anything interesting at all about the story. Someone I don’t know didn’t go to jail. And no one was hurt.

She is pretty though which my be why the Mail used SEVEN pictures of her to perk up their non story

[sp1814]

AOG

As the second offence was not on a public highway, I think it was just about right that she didn’t get a custodial sentence. Had she been caught behind the wheel on a on a road, then I think a jail sentence might be more appropriate.

Sidebar:

“She even attended classes for her addition.”

A maths class?

[Jackdaw33]

I was always under the impression that drink-driving on private land was not an offence.

[dannyk13]

No, she has done all she can to ensure that it does not happen again.

[dannyk13]

Oops for no read yes

[hc4361]

Jackdaw, the Road Traffic Act 1988 states:
1)If a person—
(a)drives or attempts to drive a motor vehicle on a road or other public place, or
(b)is in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or other public place,after consuming so much alcohol that the proportion of it in his breath, blood or urine exceeds the prescribed limit he is guilty of an offence.

Other public place includes privately owned land that the public has access to with the implied consent of the owner, such as supermarket and hotel car parks.

[Jackdaw33]

Thank you for clarifying that, hc. I was thinking of military bases but of course the public don't have access to them.

[ToraToraTora]

Yes, DD is a fairly minor thing these days, texting while driving is lot more dangerous.

[EDDIE51]

As this was the Daily Wail it took right to the end of the artical to find that ,
1 , She has been banned from driving for 3 years.
2 , She has been reported to the medical council for disciplinary procedure which will severely affect her career.
3 , Has been sentenced to do 40 hours unpaid work
4, Has been sentenced to jail but the sentence is suspended for 2 years. This means that if she is arrested for any offence at all , not necessarily a driving offence, the sentence can be activated and she will go straight to jail.
She also been ordered to pay £400 costs.
All in all I think this is sufficient punishment.
But the Wail writes the story in such a way that it looks like she got away with no punishment.
Most 'Mail Readers' will just look at the headlines and not bother to actually read the full story, it is written with them in mind.
'Mail Readers' just love to be outraged and the Wail never fails to oblige them.

[sunny-dave]

I see no merit in sending this young woman to prison - and fortunately she could afford a decent brief to convince the court of this.

However ... however ...

I'd lay quite good odds that a tattooed chavette would have been incarcerated for a few weeks and a tattooed chav for a few months - actually I suspect that any male would have been vanishingly unlikely to avoid prison (unless he went to the same school as the judge).

Again we see one law for educated, articulate, wealthy females and another for the rest of us ...

[Baldric]

One of the rare occasions I actually agree with SD.