I would be of the same view. Juries are always urged by judges to park the emotion and any sympathies that they may have for either accused or victim/complainant and consider a case coldly and analytically on the hard facts and nothing else. Invariably though emotion does come into it and juries will very often try and adopt a common sense approach. You couldn’t but have sympathy for the young lady her and the life sentence of guilt she’s already been sentenced to at 19/20 for the death of her four friends. From the few court reports that I have read of the case though, she did break law by driving unaccompanied. Its a law that’s flagrantly broken by all and sundry.
You could say that, but four people are dead because she was illegally driving round in an illegal car. This is fact which seems to have been ignored due to the height of the cats eyes.
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yeah the whole cats eyes things seems to have been a way of finding some sort of loophole.
AS in that piece, if the cats eyes caused an issue, then there would be marks from it. It was clear also from that piece that she lost control for a long time before eventually hitting the van. No one knows what went on other than those involved, but for a van to slow down and pull into the hard shoulder because he sees a car lose control, but then continue on would suggest that she was losing control for a relatively long time. It shouldnt take a long time to either stop or get the car back under control.
this is the road too,
long and straight and wide, no reason to be touching cats eyes at all. The car having no nct and obviously not been checked whatsoever as to its quality is beyond comprehension, especially by her parents. You dont let a teenager buy any aul car and send them off in it. A jail sentence would do no good though. Jail, whilst a punishment and deterrent, is also meant to be rehabilitation. She wont be as foolish again, and its not as if she wont feel guilty enough anyway. Being responsible for killing your 4 best friends would be far worse than any jail term.
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This whole thing is stirring up some serious flashbacks for me
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I’d say if there had been a conviction, likely sentence would have been non-custodial. Of course, we’re not privy to all the ins and outs of the case as a jury who sat through all of the evidence, but from what has been reported it does smack of a sympathy verdict from the jury.
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would have the same thoughts on it all too. And of course, as you say, we dont have all the facts relevant. Awful case no matter what the verdict would have been.
if this was a fella in his 20s in donegal he’d be locked up
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It’s a real catch-22. Driving unaccompanied and driving without an NCT is obviously an offence, but typically not one that results in a jail term. To be honest, to me that is the real offence, the tyre-pressure thing is a red herring and you have had lads on here calling for her to be jailed while relating their own stories about blow-outs on motorways and the like and how they have learned from it.
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as i said earlier we have no data to prove or disprove the lack of an NCT is a a contributing factor as the reason for not having the NCT wasnt specified , so if it was for a defective brake light its a non runner regarding the root cause of the accident
im not having it with the tyres until i see what the PSI was for each one versus the specified reccomendations
this was reckless driving
a horrendous precedent has been set here
she is responsible for the death of 4 people
she should be locked up
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Have you ever committed a road traffic offence and gotten away with it?
I’ve never driven drunk but I’d have overloaded the fiesta a few times as a young fella and probably wouldn’t have been too careful checking for tyre pressure, without knowing all the facts this case gives me a there but for the grace of god feeling, we’ve all fucked up on the roads, she’s hardly a criminal and she lives with this for all her days,
Has there been any commentfrom the dead girls families?
i haven’t driven recklessly and killed 4 people- she has, that’s the bottom line here
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Shocking carry on alright Mick 
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without it i probably would have killed someone… anyway.
notwithstanding all this there are 4 people dead here… FFS, how in the name of jesus can a not guilty verdict be handed down???
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Ah yeah but he wasn’t reckless. 
Apparently the jury took just 27 minutes to reach their verdict.
As Geoff has said, it was sympathy verdict.
ill have to use the “yeah shur nobody died” line here
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Driving without a licence and a valid NCT is reckless driving, or at least as close to it as you can prove. Losing control of a car is not necessarily reckless driving.
if you were taking selfies tho ?
It’s not though.