Lenient Judge
February 09, 2010
Posted by:Oliver Jeffcott
I was recently reading about the trial of 18 year old Benjamin Harrison who made nine attempts to run a cyclist off the road, shouting "I will kill you. Get off the road”. The youth did not realise that the victim was a senior police inspector, who had the presence of mind to take the driver's registration, leading to his arrest.
What shocked me about this case was that despite the gratuitous nature of the assault, the driver received a suspended sentence and is only banned from driving for 2 years. The perception seems to be that we have an automatic right to drive, which should not be the case. If a teacher attacked a pupil, they would not be allowed to continue teaching, and if a gun owner shot someone, their gun licence would be revoked. The same should go for drivers who deliberately assault other road users.