The defendant, who was driving a car in excess of the 30 mph speed limit, hit the deceased pedestrian and drove on without stopping. The deceased sustained serious injuries and died later in hospital. The defendant was arrested. A witness in a nearby shop estimated the car had been travelling at 50 mph and another nearby shop’s closed circuit television (“CCTV”) footage showed the car was travelling faster than other vehicles on the road. There was an issue as to the speed at which the car had been travelling. The Crown Prosecution Service relied on the report of an officer from the forensic collision investigation unit which concluded that (i) the car had no pre-impact defects which would have affected its handling and stopping, and (ii) based on the CCTV footage, the car had been travelling at around 30 mph which meant neither the driver nor the pedestrian could have avoided the collision. The defendant was charged with four offences in the magistrates’ court including, inter alia, the use of a motor vehicle with equipment likely to cause danger or injury and failing to stop after a road accident, to which he pleaded guilty in the Crown Court. In passing sentence, the district judge noted that the defendant faced no criminal charges for causing the deceased’s death. When the deceased’s family sought a review of the charging decision it was upheld. At the inquest, the author of the investigation unit’s report estimated the speed was around 30 mph but said screen shots in the unused CCTV material could suggest a speed of between 22–43 mph. In a further police review, the report of an experienced forensic collision investigator with expertise in CCTV analysis disagreed with the officer’s earlier findings on the issue of speed and stated that the car was probably travelling at 46 mph at which the defendant could not have stopped in time, whereas if it had been travelling at 30 mph, he could. The authorities reconsidered the charging in the light of the fresh report, relying in part on the pre-existing defects of the vehicle which had been the subject of the charges in the magistrates’ court. The defendant was charged with causing death by dangerous driving two years after being sentenced for the original offences and applied to have the proceedings stayed in the Crown Court on the grounds that the decision was oppressive and unfair when he had already been charged in the magistrates’ court and sentenced in respect of the same incident. The judge dismissed the application for a stay ruling that a prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving was not based on the same facts which gave rise to the earlier charges, the former being complete at the point of the collision and the latter being started or based on the defendant’s driving after that point. In the alternative, the judge held that there were special circumstances which justified the continuation of the prosecution namely (i) what occurred before and after the collision, (ii) the wide disparity in gravity between the earlier and later proceedings, (iii) how the later proceedings arose in order to ascertain whether the Crown could or should have charged the defendant with causing death by dangerous driving at the same time as the summary matters and (iv) the fact that the prosecuting authorities made their decision based on what was later found to be an erroneous report and fresh evidence was produced which met the threshold for charging. The defendant pleaded guilty and appealed against conviction.

On the appeal—