"[If prior convictions had been admitted to the jury] it would have been a different outcome for us."
Please forgive me for being blunt but no, Mr Hirst - it would have been the same outcome. You would have still lost your two beloved children. (It would also have destroyed the right all of us have to a fair trial in which our guilt is determined solely on the evidence with which we are charged.) For you - the families - there is no different outcome possible.
I understand why you look to Towle's punishment to make you feel that the State values your daughters' lives: but it is a futile hope. No matter what punishment is imposed, it will never make up for your loss. The State is completely incapable of redressing such a loss, which is why in the criminal law it does not even try. It can't. It has to look at the miserable state of affairs that have arisen as a result of the criminal conduct of the defendant, and then try to deal with the mess constructively.
Even though the victims, who've already suffered their loss, understandably think they'd feel better if the suffering was shared more widely - specifically, by the person who caused that loss.
Grieving mother of one of the other girls killed, Carmel Calvi:
"I still think the verdict is wrong. It doesn't make sense to me that someone can get seven years for killing six people.
"It makes life a bit worthless."
Ignoring that he got ten years, not seven, no the verdict does not "make life a bit worthless".
Sentencing in criminal law is not about balancing the slate. You cannot balance the slate. Even if we had the death penalty (which we shouldn't), killing the driver still wouldn't balance the slate. Even if we killed him, revived him, then killed him again, six times, the slate still wouldn't be balanced.
The sentence in a murder or other criminal case in which someone has died is not a valuation of the lives taken. Families looking to the courts for vengeance are missing the point of the criminal law. We do not live in biblical times. We do not subscribe to "an eye for an eye". There is little evidence that more lives would be saved and the crime rate lower if we did.
Under section 5 of the Sentencing Act 1991, the following are the only purposes for which sentences may be imposed:
- punishment;
- deterrence;
- rehabilitation;
- denunciation;
- protection of the community.
The reality is that any number of years in prison is, without doubt, a serious punishment. Those who think prison is a picnic really should try being locked up in one for 24 hours. (It's unpleasant enough being locked in when just talking to a prisoner.) In the words of the Judge, Towle had on Monday already served 771 "especially restrictive and burdensome" days in custody and "future incarceration is also likely to be more restrictive than usual". Towle is also a man with five children: the years he misses with them will be unrecoverable. Obviously his victims have suffered more, but the point remains that any years in custody will be a strong punishment.
In this case, the principles of denunciation and general deterrence were major factors in the sentencing. Clearly, drivers must be discouraged from taking risks on the road. But realistically, does a ten year sentence for Towle discourage other drivers from taking risks significantly more than a five year sentence would? Does another five years without a father improve matters for his children (the other set of innocent victims in all of this)? Does another five years holding the man in prison make the world a better place? Remember, rehabilitation is also an important consideration. He is going to get out eventually; in what state do we want him to be when he is released? How positive do you think the community's experience of the Towle children will be if he's in prison throughout the entirety of their formative teenage years?
Thomas Towle is appealing the ten years, arguing that there was an error of law (presumably that in the circumstances more of the sentences for the offences with which he was actually convicted should have been concurrent). The families of the victims are outraged:
Carmel Calvi... said Towle was dragging out her grief.
"His solicitor says he's remorseful, sorry for what he did, but he still wants to drag this out even further because they think five years for killing six children is too much," she told the Nine Network.
I don't know who is advising the families, but I'd suggest there is nothing positive to be gained from their focusing on the Towle trial and appeal as a major part of their grieving process. Human nature notwithstanding. Because no matter what happens to Towle, it will, in truth, little comfort his victims' families.
Of course, I've never lost a family member as a result of such a crime, and if it ever happened I'm sure I'd be outraged and want vengeance against the guilty party too. I would not care about esoteric notions of "legal principle" - I would want the person who had made me suffer to suffer as much as possible in return. In other words - grief would overcome my ability to reason.
Which is why it would be wrong for the media to take advantage of my state of mind by publicising my angry pronouncements, which would all, really, boil down to vengeance over any other principle. I might want it at the time, but a country that was run that way, the criminal justice system of which held vengeance to be a legitimate sentencing principle, would not be a good one in which to live. If I got my way, I'd regret it later. Others might regret it much sooner.
And newspapers - it's a ten year sentence. Stop exaggerating it downwards.
