Life in crime | A narrow ambit for dangerous driving

Strict liability in crime is a controversial principle. In R v Hughes [2013] UKSC 56 the Supreme Court grappled with the prospect of double strict liability - i.e. an aggravated offence where both the underlying offence and the aggravating feature were both of strict liability. The offence of causing death by driving, unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured drivers, contrary to section 3ZB of the '¨Road Traffic Act 1988, carries up to two years imprisonment.

The matter came before the Supreme Court as a consequence of two Court of Appeal judgments - the court in the second having been obliged to follow the reasoning in the first. The consequence was that a driver who was committing an offence of driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence, driving while disqualified, or driving without insurance, would, if involved in any way in a road traffic accident that resulted in a death, also be guilty of the section 3ZB offence. It would not matter if the driver had in no way been culpable for the accident.

Cases involving deaths on the roads can be terribly emotive affairs, and the burden that stays on a defendant's conscience is as heavy as the legal implications. Defendants in such cases are frequently the kind of person who would never deliberately hurt anyone. It therefore seems all the more unthinkable that section 3ZB could have been interpreted to make somebody carry the burden of criminal responsibility for a death that was simply not their fault.

The crux were the words "if he causes the death of another person by driving a motor vehicle on a road". The respondent contended that the very act of being in charge of a vehicle on a road when guilty of one of the three underlying offences was sufficient to satisfy this requirement. Thankfully their lordships did not agree. The unanimous decision of the court was conveyed by Lord Hughes and Lord Toulson. "It must be proved that there was something which he did or omitted to do by way of driving [the vehicle] which contributed in a more than minimal way to the death". Furthermore, "The statutory expression cannot'¦ be given effect unless there is something properly to be criticised in the driving of the defendant, which contributed in some more than minimal way to the death."

Their lordships were aware of the '¨narrow ambit that the offence would consequently operate in, below causing death by careless driving, but saw it to '¨be the inevitable consequence of the language used. Arguably, therefore, they have raised the bar as to where criminal liability should arise in relation to a death on the road, but they have done so consciously and conscientiously.