Vic: Judge criticises law-makers over negligence jail terms

Posted by admin on 06/26/07 in Traffic Safety Issues

ABC Online: Judge criticises law-makers over negligence jail terms

A Victorian County Court judge has criticised law-makers over the maximum jail terms for people found guilty of negligently causing serious injury. During sentencing this morning of Colin Gibbs Wilson from Bayswater over a road rage incident, Judge Thomas Wodak called for an increase in the five-year maximum for the offence of negligently causing serious injury.

Wilson had pleaded guilty to the offence after crashing his car into a tree, then a pole in Rowville in September last year. His family was in the car at the time of the crash - one of his daughters was left permanently brain damaged. The judge sentenced Wilson to three-and-a-half years in prison, but questioned why the complaints of so many experienced judges are not listened to when the carnage on Victoria’s roads continues.