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Lord Ahmed Jailed for Texting while Driving

by Jordan Yerman | February 25, 2009 at 07:44 am

119 views | 21 Recommendations | 4 comments

Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham was sentenced to twelve weeks in jail after admitting to sending text messages while driving. His actions took place just before he crashed into another car, killing the driver on Christmas Day 2007.

Lord Ahmed will serve a total of twelve weeks and pay £500 (US$1000) in prosecution costs, and will keep his peerage.

He was sent straight to the cells from Sheffield crown court after a judge described his texting as "prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous", even though it was not directly linked to the accident.

Ahmed, 51, will serve half the sentence behind bars and the rest on licence. His solicitor said he would appeal against the sentence, claiming the peer was being made a "scapegoat" because of his profile.

Regarding the "scapegoat" issue, how do you think a regular citizen (i.e. not a member of the House of Lords) would fare during sentencing for vehicular homicide?

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René

at 07:58 on February 25th, 2009

Think he got off easy. Not sure what the laws are over there, but the average person would probably have not gotten off so lightly.

Uwe Paschen

at 08:08 on February 25th, 2009

Good on the Courts.

Yellow Guitar

at 08:36 on February 25th, 2009

Recent polls released in NorAm claim that 30% of teenaged drivers admit to texting while driving. Most jurisdictions here do not have laws that specifically ban the practice. This is madness. Good for the UK courts for putting this clown behind bars. Who cares who is daddy is or was? He deserves worse than he got.