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Sentencing – Road traffic offences – 'Tailgating' – Sentence discounting. Sheriff Appeal Court: Refusing an appeal by an appellant who was charged with dangerous driving but at the trial diet offered a plea of guilty to driving without due care and attention which the prosecutor accepted, and was fined £225 and had his licence endorsed with 8 penalty points, the court, having categorised the appellant's driving, (which the sheriff had properly described as 'tailgating') as at the very top end of the careless scale, held that the sentence imposed was lenient, not excessive as the appellant claimed, and that the sheriff had not erred in not discounting the penalty points: arguably, he had given the appellant a generously discounted penalty by declining to disqualify and by restricting the penalty points imposed for reasons which unduly favoured the appellant.
Sentencing – Road traffic offences – 'Tailgating' – Sentence discounting. Sheriff Appeal Court: Refusing an appeal by an appellant who was charged with dangerous driving but at the trial diet offered a plea of guilty to driving without due care and attention which the prosecutor accepted, and was fined £225 and had his licence endorsed with 8 penalty points, the court, having categorised the appellant's driving, (which the sheriff had properly described as 'tailgating') as at the very top end of the careless scale, held that the sentence imposed was lenient, not excessive as the appellant claimed, and that the sheriff had not erred in not discounting the penalty points: arguably, he had given the appellant a generously discounted penalty by declining to disqualify and by restricting the penalty points imposed for reasons which unduly favoured the appellant.
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