SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said:

“On 8 July 2024 at Glasgow High Court you were convicted by a jury after trial of causing the death of Julian Mathew Wiseman and of causing serious injury to Paul Anthony Allum, all by your careless driving on the M74 motorway near Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, early in the afternoon of 24 July 2021.  You failed to react to traffic slowing in the lane ahead of you and, distracted by your hands‑free car telephone, despite reducing your speed you drove your Nissan Qashqai motor vehicle into collision with the motor cycles then being driven by Mr Wiseman and Mr Allum.

Mr Wiseman was pronounced dead at the scene.  I have read moving impact statements prepared by his fiancée and his son.  These statements together eloquently convey the scale and indeed the reach of Mr Wiseman’s life, talents and sheer energy on so many others over the decades of his adult life.  His children, fiancée, extended family, huge friendship group and indeed generations of his students will miss him terribly.  He was, as I have read the information made available about him, a rare and wholly genuine life‑force.

Mr Allum sustained multiple severe injuries of the utmost gravity, including in particular a spinal cord injury resulting in paraplegia.  I have read Mr Allum’s own extremely powerful impact statement. He is now wheelchair dependent and requires the assistance of two support workers.  His injuries have been catastrophic and are life‑changing in their nature, affecting every area of his existence.  Mr Allum appears to be coping with remarkable fortitude and strength of character to the devastation wrought by his injuries upon his future life, in its entirety.  That fortitude extends to what I am informed in the Probation Service pre-sentence report is his continued support for you in this case. 

You know all of this, of course, because, unusually, your victims in this truly tragic case were your close friends, whom you had met while at Kent University together.  One indeed was your own best man.  You were on a road trip heading north when your criminal conduct destroyed all of that, forever.  As I observed you in the dock of the North Court at Glasgow High Court during your trial, I concluded that rarely had I seen such a broken individual in a courtroom.  These events will remain with you for the rest of your life, of that I have no doubt at all, as indeed they should.  Your remorse is in my view genuine and profound.  You are a retired sixty year old first offender and are married with children.  Your senior counsel has advanced powerful mitigatory submissions on your behalf this morning.  I propose of course to take all of that background material into account.

The principal factor in the sentencing exercise before the court must be the jury’s determination, having heard all of the evidence led by the Crown, that your driving was careless rather than dangerous.  There are in my view no material aggravating features, albeit that your victims in this case were on motor cycles.  There is no public benefit in sending you to prison.  You are of good character.  You have been assessed as presenting a low risk of reoffending. You are, in reality, serving your own indefinite sentence of grief and remorse.

Turning now to disposal, I propose to select in respect of this indictment a level two community payback order of two years duration.  This order is being imposed, you must understand, as a direct alternative to a sentence of immediate imprisonment.  You will be under supervision for the duration of the order and comply with all of the instructions of those supervising you.  You will in addition undertake 300 hours of unpaid work for the benefit of your local community within the first year of the order.  If you breach the terms of this disposal, you will be brought back to this court and the custodial alternative to which I have just referred will in all likelihood be imposed upon you, by me, directly and as a matter of course.  This order will be transferred administratively to Basildon Crown Court later today, that being your local supervising court. You have not driven since this terrible incident, and you do not intend to drive again. Nevertheless, you will also be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence for a period of 5 years, and you will require to sit an extended test of driving competency prior to making any hypothetical future licence application once that disqualification period has been served.

Mr Shrubsole, if I may speak candidly to you at this point, you should regard this sentence today as an opportunity. As your friends and victims in this tragic case cannot, you have before you a chance to begin your life anew, the life that, as I and others have observed you, in effect stopped on the M74 at around 1.30pm on 24 July 2021.  I suggest that you should dedicate the years of this order to serving others and rehabilitating yourself, above and beyond the bare conditional terms and time-frames which I have expressed in court and which you will see for yourself in due course in a document which will be served upon you later today.  How you approach this sentence is a matter for you, but I am telling you that the opportunity is there, is real and should be grasped by you.”

21 August 2024