Jury have acquitted: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Looks like this is just a reporting error on the part of the BBC. I believe the charge is death by careless.

26 years minimum term now passed for the murder of Chris Marriott.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

For completeness I should also add that weapon DOES make a difference, as the starting point is higher for cases where a knife was taken to the scene. This is set in statute: Schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020.

Sorry - *age, not she!

eg this 19 yo who got minimum term of 22 years recently for a stabbing: share.google/xVwbeyxlojRG...
Or this 23 year old who also got 22 years: share.google/YIPRvHLLYpna...

It's the she that was the issue - not the weapon. It's a general principle of sentencing that youth is a mitigating factor. The question is where the cut off should be. At present 'young age' for an adult in sentencing is 18-25.

Presumed liability is only ever used in relation to civil liability. It is used in other countries, but not to establish criminal liability. The right to a fair trial, and presumption of innocence, does not allow conviction for a crime to be based on presumed liability.

But the law doesn't care currently if it's a conscious decision or not. Should it?

Causing death/serious injury offences are "constructed" on the underlying careless/dangerous offences and should, in theory, apply the same test. But I've found in my research that the competent and careful driver test in reality is often applied differently depending on the end result.

I agree.

But I'm finding that even lawyers with lots of experience in these cases simply don't see this. I get the sense that "driving" gets interpreted as "steering" (if the car doesn't divert from its path, it's all fine). The test is applied very differently depending on the end result.

You might be right that it's not quite ideal. I think a discussion is needed to identify appropriate tests. For a while I had thought that the current law is as good as we could get, if not perfect, but I increasingly see the test of the competent and careful driver just not working.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good. But should be expelled not just suspended.

Clearly she needs to be chauffeur driven all the time due to an inability to follow the law. But that should come out of her own pocket - not at taxpayers' expense!

Have they not see Lupin?

I've since seen a comment on Facebook that the driver will be prosecuted for dangerous driving. Not confirmed.