Labour Peer Lord Ahmed has been jailed for 12 weeks after pleading guilty in court to driving dangerously in the lead up to a fatal car accident in which his vehicle collided with another car on the M1 motorway, killing the other driver. Lord Ahmed was found guilty of dangerous driving after mobile phone records revealed he had been sending and receiving text messages for several minutes before the crash, in what the judge said amounted to “prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous driving”.
Using a mobile phone at the wheel was outlawed in 2003, after concerns that it was distracting driver’s attention from the road, leading to more road traffic accidents. In Lord Ahmed’s case, although he stopped using his mobile phone roughly two miles before the collision with the other motorist, he had engaged in what the judge described as a “conversation” with a journalist via text message as he was driving along the motorway near Rotherham on Christmas Day 2007. As the Judge, Alan Wilkie said: “After a full and thorough police investigation, it’s clear the dangerous driving had no causal link to the accident.”
The motorist who was killed, a 28 year old Martyn Gombar, a Slovakian man living and working in the UK, had crashed his car into the central reservation of the motorway, and the vehicle had come to rest across two lanes of the motorway, in total darkness. Forensic tests on Mr Gombar’s body carried out after the accident showed he had been drinking, and it is though that he had been attempting to retrieve his mobile phone from his vehicle at the moment Lord Ahmed’s Jaguar collided with his Audi. Lord Ahmed was sentenced to 12 weeks imprisonment by the judge, and he is expected to serve around half of this tarriff.
Although Camps Solicitors do not provide legal services in criminal cases such as Lord Ahmed’s, it is still possible to make a separate civil compensation claim if a person has been injured or killed in a road traffic accident. This allows the family of the victim to recover some compensation. Whilst a compensation claim can in no way truly compensate someone for the loss of a family member, it can take account of factors such as the money the victim may have earned had he or she not been killed, so that surviving family members and dependants are not left with financial hardship after their bereavement.
If you or someone you know has been injured in an accident caused by someone else’s dangerous driving and you would like more information about making a compensation claim against the motorist responsible, call Camps Solicitors today.
Call 0800 092 8586
Speak to one of our claims advisors about your claim.
Damn, awesome website. I actually came across this on Bing, and I am happy I did. I will definately be coming back here more often. Wish I could add to the conversation and bring a bit more to the site, but am just absorbing as much info as I can at the moment.
Thank You