Charity reveals support for killer drivers to face life in prison

KILLER drivers should face up to life in prison, people across the area have said in a survey.

Road safety charity Brake said 93 per cent of people in the south east want drivers who kill on the roads to be charged with manslaughter.

Currently drivers can be charged with death by dangerous driving or causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs.

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Brake wants government to review guidelines for sentences and for charging decisions.

Gary Rae, from Brake, said: ‘People we work with tell us they are left feeling betrayed by the use of inappropriately-termed charges and lenient sentences.

‘Drivers who kill while taking illegal risks are too often labelled “careless” in the eyes of the law, and then given insultingly low sentences when their actions can only be described as dangerous and destructive.’

In 2013 Samuel Etherington killed two teenage girls, Jasmine Allsop, 14, and Olivia Lewry, 16.

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He had crashed into the pair in Ann’s Hill Road, Gosport, in November 2013 when he was travelling at 65mph.

Etherington had denied two counts of manslaughter but pleaded guilty to two counts of death by dangerous driving.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it was not in the public interest to pursue the manslaughter charges and accepted the pleas.

He was jailed for nine years and lost an appeal to shorten the sentence in 2014.

Rose Allsop, Jasmine’s mother, has previously backed a News campaign to increase prison sentences for killer drivers.