High Court rejects parents' bid
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• The parents of Charles Mitchell, who was killed by a Belgian lorry driver, have failed in their High Court bid to have a corporate manslaughter in
launched against the driver's employers.
Lord Justice Auld said he could find nothing irrational in the Crown l'n)secution Services' decision that there was "no realistic prospect" of the company being successfully prosecuted in the UK on a charge of corporate manslaughter.
But the Crown Prosecution Service's refusal to seek co-operation from the Belgian government in gathering evidence against the truck driver's Belgian employers has been slammed by Mitchell's parents as "perverse" .
They claim that driver Eddy de Meersman, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for causing death by dangerous driving, was put under pressure to drive when exhausted to meet tight delivery schedules. He is said to have fallen asleep at the wheel when his lorry struck Mitchell's motorcycle on the Al at Cromwell on 9 May 1995.
Lawyer Kris Gledhill, who was representing the Mitchells. said the police had been "ready, willing and able" to launch a full investigatiOn of the Belgian company "but were prevented from doing so because of the inaction of the CPS".
• The Criminal Appeal Court has upheld the five-year prison sentence on a truck driver who was drunk when he hit an oncoming car, killing its driver.
David Wilde, from Wareham, was jailed and given a six-year driving ban last year at Bournemouth Crown Court after pleading guilty to causing Paul Wakeling's death by driving without due care and attention after consuming alcohol above the prescribed limit.
Justice Hooper said: "This can be described as one of the very worst cases and his appeal , is dismissed."