SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Lord Arthurson made the following remarks in court:

"Beth Mae Damer was only 20 years of age when she died.  She was a much loved daughter and sister.  She was about to celebrate her 21^st birthday. She was an NHS clinical support worker by occupation, and was highly respected and valued by her colleagues.  Ms Damer was a gifted musician, playing the cornet with Coalburn Brass Band. She filled her family home with joy and music. The eloquent family impact statements which I have read make it plain just how much she will be missed by those who loved her, in particular her parents and two brothers.  Ms Damer will forever be in their memories a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, a life of potential, promise, fulfilment and achievement. In the words so powerfully expressed in one of the impact statements, Beth Damer’s was a beautiful life, cut short.

Sam Barber, on 19 August 2024 at a preliminary hearing at Glasgow High Court you tendered a plea of guilty to a single charge indictment libelling the crime of, on 12 March 2022 at about 1630 hrs on the A72, causing the death of Ms Damer by your dangerous driving, contrary to section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.  On a camber section of the road, which had a maximum speed limit of 60mph, you drove your new vehicle at the grossly excessive speed of 103mph.  You duly lost control of your vehicle, causing it to drive across the opposing carriageway, onto a grass verge and into collision with a post and a fence and eventually to become airborne, land in a field and repeatedly overturn.  Ms Damer, your victim, was your passenger at the time.  

Members of the public commendably came to her aid.  Paramedics arrived.  A doctor, who attended by helicopter, found her to be critically injured with minimal signs of life.  Resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, and Ms Damer’s life was pronounced extinct at 1738 hrs.  The cause of death was recorded as pelvic injuries due to the crash.

You are now aged 28.  You have to date accrued directly relevant multiple convictions under the Road Traffic Act 1988 and related legislation.  You have a speeding conviction in respect of a motorway dated 2021, and you have three separate convictions for careless driving in terms of section 3 of the 1988 Act, dating from 2016 (two) and 2021.

Your personal circumstances are set out in the criminal justice social work report which is now available.  I have considered that report and a reference from your employer alongside the submissions advanced by your counsel in mitigation on your behalf this morning.  In particular I note your stable employment history and your family circumstances and obligations, your mental health and deep remorse for your criminal behaviour, together with your acceptance of responsibility for this crime by way of your guilty plea.  

Your counsel has also referred to your shoulder injury and the loss of your relationship with the deceased, although in the broader context of this case I do not consider these latter matters to weigh much, if at all, in the balance. Your bail was continued on the occasion of your tendering of your guilty plea in order to allow you to accommodate arrangements for your young son.  I explained then that this was an exceptional course.  The reason for that explanation was that a significant custodial disposal is inevitable in your case, standing the nature and gravity of the crime before the court. That remains the position, notwithstanding the terms of the Dr Bett’s report dated 1 October 2024 in respect of what is stated therein regarding your presently precarious mental health.

Referring to the January 2024 guidelines, the nature and manner of your driving, in respect of what I have already referred to as your grossly excessive speed, places this offence in my view squarely within level of seriousness B.  Your relevant numerous previous convictions plainly constitute a relevant aggravating factor, in my view a substantial one, and your expressed remorse constitutes a relevant mitigating factor.

In the whole circumstances I accordingly now sentence you to 5 years imprisonment, discounted due to the timing of your plea from a period of 6 years and 6 months.  This sentence will run from today.

You will one doubtless day leave prison and rejoin your family and the community. Your victim Ms Damer will never, due to your criminal behaviour, be able to do any of that.  I have sought today, as I require to do, to apply the applicable sentencing guidelines for cases of this nature.

That said, I fully understand that this sentence may nevertheless seem wholly inadequate to observing bereaved family members and friends, but of course nothing that this court can do can undo the crime that you and you alone are responsible for and in so doing turn back the clock. The sentence imposed today should not in any sense whatsoever be regarded as measurement of the impact of the loss of Ms Damer to her grieving family. That impact is quite simply immeasurable.

I have already mentioned your driving record as an important factor in the sentencing exercise already undertaken in your case.  But it is also relevant to the final part of that exercise, namely the selection by the court of the disqualification period to be imposed.  In the whole circumstances you will additionally be disqualified from driving and obtaining a driving licence for a period of 12 years and 6 months, which period for the avoidance of doubt includes the period to be imposed in terms of section 35C of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.  On the expiry of that period you will require to sit an extended test of driving competence before you can apply for a new licence, if you ever do so at all, of course.

 2 October 2024