your thoughts - a long one.

£10,000 to Nail Driver Who Ate Apple



Hardcore offence? Sarah McCaffery behind the wheel


Police spent more than £10,000 of public money, and used a helicopter and a spotter plane, to convict a woman of driving while eating an apple.

Officers spent months gathering evidence and building a vast case against 23-year-old Sarah McCaffery – and yesterday she was fined £60.

The nursery nurse was forced to attend court 10 times before the fine was finally handed out by magistrates at South Shields, Tyneside.

Victims of crime groups and campaigners for taxpayers were furious at what they see as a scandalous waste of public money.

Officers swung into action after McCaffery was spotted eating a golden delicious at the wheel of her Ford Ka.


"This is all about trying to crush her because she is the one who stood up and said 'this is silly'"
-Geoffrey Forrester, Sarah's solicitor


She refused to accept a £30 on-the-spot fine, claiming she was in full control of the car, and said she would fight it in court.

Astonishingly, police then called in a spotter plane to film her route, then repeated the exercise with a police helicopter.

Officers then videoed the route from a squad car and used the footage as part of yesterday’s two and a half hour hearing.


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The costs of the whole proceedings against McCaffery are estimated at £10,000.

She said: "It is a joke they put so much effort into this. I couldn’t believe it when they brought all this video evidence into court.

"You’d think they’d have better things to do. Aren’t there enough proper criminals for them to catch?"

Her solicitor, Geoffrey Forrester, said: “This is all about trying to crush her because she is the one who stood up and said 'this is silly'."

A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: "As the defendant chose a court trial rather than accept a fixed penalty, we were obliged to gather all appropriate evidence to present our case."

Matthew Elliot of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "The thousands of pounds spent on this case could have been spent trying to tackle real criminals, the people who burgle our houses and steal our cars."

copied from aol news.

what are your views on this ? reading in the sun yesterday - and they were totally on the defendants side - saying that she was a victim of the police, and that they shouldnt have wasted that money pursuing it ?

in my opinion - she got what she deserved. why didnt she just admit she was wrong in the first place. and take the fine, what she did was dangerous and there arnt many ways around it. bang to rights guilty.

the police spent alot of money - but they cant let people get away with crimes as it would be too expensive to uphold the law.


discuss . . . .

[ophic]

i'd have preferred them to invest £10,000 into catching mobile phone offenders - or people who drive around with their foglights on (pet hate ). I don't consider that eating an apple at the wheel impairs your control of the car - if you get into trouble, you just drop it. I'd consider smoking at the wheel to be far more hazardous.

Are there any stats? In how many accidents has an apple been a contributing factor? Now how silly does that sound?

but how does the apple get into your hand in the first place ?

admittedly, its not as bad as smoking or chatting on the phone, but it is still an offence. . . . and the police cant drop a ticket thats been issued on the basis that its too expensive to get a conviction. . . otherwise they would be a walk over and everyone would challenge every ticket that they are given.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by bikageboy

but how does the apple get into your hand in the first place ?

Irrelevant, you could have it on the passenger seat, or the trays near the steering wheel etc. Or you could responsibly pull over and take it out of a lunch box. I agree fiddling with stuff like bags or lunchboxes etc whilst driving is dangerous, but that is a separate issue.

If eating an Apple at the wheel is so wrong then why haven't the government banned all drive through fast food outlets? As far as I can see the only reason for those outlets is to enable you to eat on the move which, according to recent events, is illegal!

Totally over the top and a complete waste of tax payer's money and is IMHO nothing short of malicious.

I'm not saying that eating an apple is the wisest thing in the world to do when driving, but surely a quiet word or a caution would have been a much more appropriate course of action.

Playing devils advocate...

Say for example that a murder case wasnt persued because it was costing too much money to solve, I think people would be pretty angry.

Whilst I do agree that this was a waste of money, the police do a difficult job already and they should be allowed to get on with persuing criminals, not worrying about how the budget is being spent.

[northwind]

There was another thread on this already.
http://forums.sv650.org/viewtopic.php?t=17517

Holding an apple's not the problem, rummaging around for an apple then eating it is the problem... She'd have been driving one-handed with some of her attention off the road for a considerable distance. If she'd hit a biker while eating an apple we'd have 20 people posting "Hanging's too good for 'em".

The fact is she chose to appeal it. She was handed a £30 fine and no points at the roadside, which is one step above a caution at the roadside. Same as you or I'd get for an illegal plate. She then decided herself to fight the case in court. The alternative is that the Police drop every £30 fine case as soon as court is threatened, since none of them will be financially viable.

The prosecution put the Police cost of the case at £425 and £100 of that was recovered as McCaffrey was fined £60 plus £100 costs.

OTOH the £10000 is "estimated" by the Sun. IE they've guessed an amount and doubled it... I'm not saying you shouldn't believe anything you read in the Sun, just not much of it

Mike, the reason for drive-thrus is that you can buy your food and eat it in the car, you don't need to do so while driving... Every drive-thru I've ever seen has had a car park for you to sit in and eat, and s sign telling you not to eat while driving... I call straw man!

Hmmmmm,

So if needed she could just drop the apple?? Well if she needed to do that, that would probably signify that there was a hazard ahead and that she would need to take quick avoiding action. Dropping the apple to regain full control of the vehicle?? The said dropped apple falls into the foot well and rolls under the brake pedal?? Woman needs to push foot on pedal to take the avoiding action (assuming here that in 99% of the time a slowing of speed is going to result in avoiding the hazard or better still preventing one happening). Woman cant apply brakes because of the apple under the brake pedal ??

Result?? More than likely a bigger hazard/accident than the one she could have been reacting to in the first place.

I personally think the police should have cautioned her and explained the possible results of what seems to be a harmless act. The fact that they decided to issue her a ticket is their prerogative. The fact that she decided to appeal and not accept the ticket, gave the police no other option than to pursue it in court.

I think it was HER that wasted the £10000 and not the police. She should have had to pay the full lot in my opinion for being so stupid as not to accept the punishment.

Regardless of whether she thought it was stupid or not, she committed an offence and should have just paid the price.

[Balky001]

I read the air support was already in the air and were not on a job so it didn't cost £10,000 to follow her route specially, that's just normal operating cost. Nice bit of persuasive writing I think. But turning a corner single handedly isn't a very bright idea, manuverability is limited at best and you can't react as quickly whoever you are. I love these sensational headlines - but they do miss the point. There's always a case for saying money spent on doing minor crimes is better spent on more serious things but I think you need a balance and this woman got caught and should have taken the fine - people like her cost's taxpayers money.