{"id":7752,"date":"2012-01-07T14:50:36","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T14:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=7752"},"modified":"2012-01-07T14:50:36","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T14:50:36","slug":"female-drivers-diet-caused-death-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=7752","title":{"rendered":"Female Driver\u2019s Diet Caused Death Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all, a story like this comes along<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Patricia Aitken, 55, was involved in an accident in which a learner driver died. She allegedly  "lost consciousness" behind the wheel \u2013 claiming that the low-calorie diet she was on was responsible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the good bit: she was sentenced \u2013 if you can call it a \u201csentence\u201d \u2013 to 240 hours community service and banned for 5 years.<\/p>\n

The story is somewhat confusing. Aitken apparently admitted \u201ccareless driving and causing the death of\u2026 Suzanne Harkness\u201d, who was only 22. However, it later says that she \u201cinitially denied the charge, claiming her low-calorie diet caused her to black out moments before the head-on smash\u201d. It then goes on to say (again):<\/p>\n

\n

Initially, Aitken claimed a low-calorie diet which she had been on for two days may have caused her to black out. <\/p>\n

Aitken changed her plea to guilty after the Crown produced an expert medical report which dismissed the suggestion that the diet could have caused the loss of consciousness or fainting at the wheel. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Incredibly, the accident took place in August 2009, and yet it has only been dealt with now \u2013 and with such a ridiculous outcome.<\/p>\n

Understandably, Suzanne Harkness\u2019 family are unhappy with the result.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, this is an example of Scottish<\/strong> justice at work, but perhaps someone can explain how this case<\/a> is any different to Aitken\u2019s? Surely, being a learner is a much better excuse than being on a diet? Yet the learner was jailed (rightly) for 2 years, whereas Aitken has got off scot-free (no pun intended). And why was Aitken not charged with causing death by dangerous driving? After all, she was on the wrong side of the road and her pathetic argument about the diet was refuted and dismissed.<\/p>\n

Suzanne Harkness\u2019 driving instructor was also seriously injured and lost consciousness, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sheriff Donald Corke must be entered on the Register of Judges With No Sense Whatsoever, which already has a fair few English ones on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you think you\u2019ve heard it all, a story like this comes along. Patricia Aitken, 55, was involved in an accident in which a learner driver died. She allegedly  "lost consciousness" behind the wheel \u2013 claiming that the low-calorie diet she was on was responsible. Here\u2019s the good bit: she was sentenced \u2013 if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}