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Last year a French truck driver, driving in Britain on
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the wrong side of the road, caused a crash that killed a coach driver. He was fined £500 for driving without due care and attention. But now, safely across the Channel, he ridicules the UK. Pat Hagan reports on this travesty—but finds that incompetent foreign drivers may have to pay for their actions in the future...
t's not hard to see why truck driver Jean Claude Boulanger made the front page of The Sun recently. As if being French was not bad enough, he had also "stuck two fingers up" at British justice, in The Suns words, after fleeing back to France without paying a koo fine for causing an accident in which a coach driver died.
To make matters worse, Boulanger allegedly told a Sun reporter such accidents would not happen if the British "drove on the right side of the road like everyone else in Europe".
The story highlights what many feel is a loophole in the way criminals who commit an offence in one country can escape punishment by fleeing to another.
Boulanger was driving on the A638 near Pontefract in West Yorkshire in March last year when he missed a turning. I-fe was attempting an illegal U-turn when a coach load of sixth-form students on their way to the theatre rammed into the side of his artic, killing coach driver Allan Harrison.
Penalty points
Pontefract magistrates fined the Frenchman L500 for driving without due care and attention and imposed six penalty points. But six months later Boulanger has still not paid up. Although magistrates in the UK have issued a summons for his arrest, the French police have no legal powers to act on it. And to add insult to the injury caused to the victim's family, the penalty points count for nothing in France.
Differences in the legal systems of European Union member states have led to countless diplomatic problems down the years. The most notable recent example was the fiasco of British plane spotters locked up for spying in Greece—an episode that put considerable strain on relations between the two countries.
The recent history of international haulage is littered with examples of British drivers imprisoned abroad—in some cases for years—while waiting to go to trial on drugs smuggling charges.
The current situation is that EU states are under no legal compulsion to enforce fines or sentences imposed elsewhere in the EU. So if someone like Boulanger makes for home after committing an offence in another country. the only way they can be caught is if Customs officials pick them up next time they enter the UK.
But within the next two years this situation is almost certain to change. EU states are in the midst of lengthy negotiations over a panEuropean agreement designed to bring criminals to justice.
The European Arrest Warrant will compel every EU country to hand over suspects of serious crimes to any other member state without going through lengthy and complex extradition procedures. It's not likely to apply to minor traffic offences or dodgy tachographs, but truck drivers who cause serious accidents through negligence could be brought to book under the new pact.
Due to come into force by 2004, the European Arrest Warrant is ostensibly aimed at combating the spread of terrorism. But it seems likely that it will set a legal precedent for a whole range of other crimes.
Stephen jakobi, lawyer with Fair Trials Abroad, says that if the warrant was in place now French police would have to act on it by enforcing the Boulanger summons on behalf of the British legal system.
"It compels them to take action; they would have to collect the fine on our behalf," he says. "All they have to do is pro
duce a notice saying there's a fine and the offender could find they're in danger of losing their house. Likewise, anybody who wants to throw a lineal a British driver in another country— for whatever reason—will be able to get it enforced here, no questions asked."
Legal experts
Its this issue that has raised concerns among some legal experts. In order to allow the new system to work quickly and efficiently the warrant decrees that each EU state effectively endorses the legal systems of its fellow states. But Jakobi is among those who fear it could lead to British citizens being prosecuted for offences
which might not be classed as crimes in the UK. He is pressing for amendments to the warrant to deal with this anomaly.
Transport law specialist Christopher Over from legal firm Over. Taylor, Biggs says: "The trouble is you're judged by the law of the country in which the accident occurs, not your own law. So if it's in France, then French law applies."
Tim Culpin from Chesterbased lawyers Aaron and Partners is surprised, given the severity of the offence, that the police did not detain Boulanger until the fine was paid. Culpin operates a 24-hour helpline for foreign drivers arrested in the UK for driving-related offences, under which the law firm agrees to act as the recipient of the summons on behalf of the driver. It's a system that's designed to give foreign drivers access to transport law expertise, helping them avoid unnecessary time in prison thus getting the goods moving again.
"None of the normal motoring offences is arrestable, but if you do not have a suitable address for the summons to be sent to, you will be arrested," says Culpin. "Occasionally the police have a purge and they might put foreign drivers in jail for four or five days for something like lc) minutes excess daily driving. So we accept the summons for them,
"If there's a defence, then we will defend them; if not we miti
gate," he adds. "We very rare') have drivers use us as a means ol evading the summons.
"As for British drivers caught in the same situation abroad, there'i. not much we can do except pul them in touch with our contacts on the Continent. The trouble that, in France, for example, th< fine has to be paid there and then there's not even a court case, Sc you can only defend it retrospec. tively once the driver has returned home," Culpin explains.
Dave Whitman, administration manager at Kirkcaldy-based haulier Andrew Wishart & Sons says procedures for driver: involved in accidents abroad are pretty much the same as in the UK. They include informing base, making a statement of facti and completing various accident reporting forms routinely corn& in the cab. Whitman says none ol the company drivers has fat& prosecutions abroad, but if the) did the firm would probably sea specialist legal advice from the Road Haulage Association, oi which it is a member.
M IA Movements, a hauliel based in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire which specialises in transporting high-value machinery, says dri vers have no shortage of anec dotes illustrating the difference: between British and Europear justice systems. "In France you're not allowed to move until you've coughed up, or your lorry impounded," says compam spokesman Mick Abblett. "It's very uneven playing field."