Scottish High Court of Justiciary Decisons

"... I decided that I had to impose a sentence which would send a clear message that such behaviour would be treated severely by the courts, and, it is hoped, would discourage other likeminded young people or indeed any driver from engaging in such conduct".

In our opinion there is no criticism that can be made of the sentencing judge's general approach. The agreed narrative set out in her report describes a case of totally irresponsible racing of their motor vehicles by the appellants at high speed on public roads. The collisions which resulted produced, as the sentencing judge puts it in her report, under reference to photographs of the locus of the collisions, a "scene of utter devastation". We have no difficulty in agreeing with the sentencing judge that racing motor vehicles at high speed on public roads in circumstances that expose other road users to the risk of death or serious injury is, as she said, "senseless, irresponsible and extremely dangerous". The circumstances of this case were such as to entitle the judge to conclude that a deterrent sentence was appropriate.

"With the number of aggravating factors in the present case, it was difficult to envisage a much more serious case than this".

It is seldom helpful to characterise a case as lying at an extreme of seriousness. One can always, with little difficulty, envisage a more serious case, or even find more serious illustrations in the records of the court. This case involved, on any view, reprehensible conduct of a serious kind that resulted in horrifying consequences. Three young people died. Nothing can palliate the losses sustained by their families. There is little doubt that they, understandably, will find it difficult to envisage a crime resulting in any more serious and devastating consequences for them. Another young person, Michael Parson, suffered horrific injuries with consequential physical deficits that will permanently scar his life. The impact of the appellants' conduct on him cannot be overstated. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that in fixing a maximum penalty of fourteen years, Parliament is to be taken to have had in contemplation the widest range of circumstances, relevant and material to the selection of sentence in every section 1 case. Thus the maximum applies potentially, and equally, in the case of a first offender and a repeat offender, irrespective, in the latter case, of whether previous offending was of a directly analogous character. Again the maximum applies, potentially, and equally, to the driver of a relatively light and low powered vehicle and the driver of a vehicle that, by virtue of its physical size, weight, power and the nature of its load, presents a greater hazard, if driven at speed and dangerously, to other road users. It applies potentially, and equally, to the driver who engages in a single highly dangerous manoeuvre, such as overtaking on the approach to a blind summit, and to the driver who drives dangerously over a significant period through residential streets pursued by the police. It applies potentially, and equally, to a driver of a vehicle in which there are no passengers and a driver of, for example, a school bus full of school children. It is accordingly, and unfortunately, not difficult to envisage cases which, when objectively viewed, are even more serious than the present. However the most relevant consideration is that, in fixing the maximum sentence, Parliament must have envisaged the whole range of possibilities and left it to the court to select an appropriate sentence within the range available.

(a) in the case of Graham Stuart Lynn a sentence of detention of seven years and eight months and

(b) in the case of Stuart Logue a sentence of six years.