THE GUARDIAN: Lord Ahmed was involved in an accident that left a man dead on the M1 near Rotherham
The Labour peer Lord Ahmed has been freed by the court of appeal today from a 12-week jail sentence for dangerous driving.
Ahmed, 51, was sentenced for sending and receiving texts on the M1 near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, shortly before he was involved in a fatal crash in darkness on Christmas day in 2007.
Martyn Gombar, a 28-year-old Slovakian, was killed after Ahmed's Jaguar hit his Audi car, which had stopped in the fast lane. Subsequent tests revealed that Gombar, a father of two, had been drinking before his vehicle clipped the central reservation of the motorway and spun around. Gombar was attempting to retrieve his mobile phone from the car at the time of the collision.
Records showed that Ahmed, whose wife and mother were also in the car, had sent and received five text messages with a journalist while driving at over 60mph.
He was jailed by Sheffield crown court last month after admitting driving dangerously, and was banned from driving for 12 months.
Although the judge in the trial, Justice Wilkie, described Ahmed's texting as "prolonged, deliberate, repeated and highly dangerous," he said the text messaging had finished before the accident took place and was not connected with the crash.
Allowing Lord Ahmed's appeal today, Lady Justice Hallett said it was important to state that Ahmed's offence was one of dangerous driving, not of causing death by dangerous driving. >>> Jo Adetunji and agencies | Thursday, March 12, 2009
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