On October 22nd, 2006, a car carrying five teenaged boys crashed into a telegraph pole, killing all but the driver. Now, the driver is facing court, having pled guilty to four counts of dangerous driving resulting in death. He is nineteen.
Today, he fronted Lismore District Court to hear the impact statements of the parents and they were, in short, horrific. Of course they were. These people have lost their children, and lost them in a cruel, sudden, unexpected way. They read morgue reports of their sons faces having been ‘blown off’, their ‘heads exploded.’ They are suffering tremendously. They always will.
But so is the driver.
Everything he does for the rest of his life, everywhere he goes, everyone he meets, everything he tries to become, will be coloured by that night and its grisly outcome. What is being achieved of reminding him of something that he would think of every day and every night – something that he was involved in on a level we can never appreciate? He was next to his friends when their faces were blown off, he wore their blood and he will for the rest of his life. The grief is wracking. The guilt would be poisonous.
Yes this young man should pay what he can for his mistake. Yes the families of the deceased must be black with grief and may never get over the tragedy that befell their family. But no one, no one knows more than this kid. I understand the family’s need to blame, to direct their sheer anger somewhere. And I understand he is the obvious choice. But no one knows that more than he does.
He did something people do everyday. Those five boys in that car on that day driving down that road at that speed were the unlucky ones. Dreadfully unlucky. Dreadfully stupid. But not with the intent to harm, much less the intent to die. While I know it is pointless to speculate, I am going to go out on a limb and guess each boy in that car felt as invincible as the other that day, as they drove down that road at 30km/hour over the speed limit. Not one of them foresaw what awaited them, as the result of a bit of harmless, albeit stupid, fun. Not one of them could have imagined how they would pay in the way you see in speeding ads, on billboards and in magazines. The fact that they did is not because the driver got into that car with the intent to walk away from a car accident as the lone survivor out of all his friends.
What is being achieved by having this boy, three years after killing four of his mates, listen to the gut wrenching despair of the deceased’s parents? By having him hear that his split second of stupidity causes them unfathomably deep and overwhelming grief? He, of all people, knows that. That ‘split second decision’ is and always will be his life. He will never escape that.
If the aim of having the person charged with the crime hear the victim impact statements, is to result in the perpetrator experiencing remorse, and essentially ‘learning from their mistakes’ then for a mentally adjusted person who made a poor decision that resulted in dire consequences, the entire exercise is pointless. He did not intend to kill his four mates, and you can bet your bottom dollar the remorse he feels, he can taste every day of his life.
This boy will never make this same mistake again, and he will suffer enormously for it, alongside those who lost their children – because he took those children away from them. And he will do this with or without the mother of one of his best mates revealing she sometimes lies on her son’s grave to be closer to him, and with or without being asked in front of his family, and families he has known for years, ‘how could you do this?’
Image by Lambdachialpha on Flickr
It’s a misfortune of circumstance. And whilst the families may be more than unwilling to understand that it does happen, and it’s a risk of the life we lead, the driver, too, is subject to a misfortune of circumstance.
The kid certainly has some dues to pay, to impress upon him the gravity of his actions, but he also needs forgiveness and, perhaps, some give. I’m not saying he deserves it. But we don’t forgive others because they deserve it, we do it because they need it to move on.
That is exactly what forgiveness is, isn’t it. An act of empathy to allow the people involved to move on.
Personally I feel that driving is a huge responsibility, and do not agree that nobody will feel this pain more than the driver. Knowing that your life has been ruined by something you’ve done is easier to bear than knowing your life has been ruined by something that someone else has done, and ultimately he is still alive while others bury their children. Just because he understands his actions have had terrible consequences, this doesn’t negate him of blame, and facing criminal charges and the familys of those killed by his stupidity and having to hear the horrific details is the least he should have to endure. Nor do I believe that reckless driving is a ‘misfortune of circumstance’. Being involved in an unavoidable accident is a misfortune of circumstance; this certainly doesn’t qualify in that catagory.
You don’t think he has endured enough?
Sorry, me again… just to add … considering he was in the car, alongside his friends as they sustained their horrific injuries; considering he is also grieving for close, loved ones, coupled with the knowledge that he is responsible for their deaths; considering he will receive criminal punishment, on top of the punishment he lives and breathes everyday; considering he probably already has a fairly good idea of the anguish and grief the parents are suffering? Don’t you think it’s all, quite simply, enough?
I think that it’s awfully sad. But the truth is that any one of those five boys could have been driving, and any one of those five boys could have killed the other four. I think the parents, as tragic and life altering as the situation is, need to realise that one driver is not to blame. That FIVE young men are to blame – because each allowed the situation to escalate. Each is at fault. Each and every one of them thought they were invincible.
Sometimes in life it is easy to point the finger at something, or someone. To place blame, so that you can direct your anger at someone, so that you can hate. At the end of the day, it achieves nothing. The situation does not change. Life doesn’t magically re-appear.
SJ I can’t disagree with you more. When someone else has done something wrong, when someone else has hurt you, it is MUCH easier to forgive and forget. Because there is always an if. You never actually know what they were thinking/doing/etc. But when, in fact, you are the culprit, it is much harder to get over – because you are always in control of yourself, always with your thoughts. When someone does something to you, you can seek revenge, even if it’s pointless. You can direct your thoughts and negative energy into their demise. When it is you however, all that emotion and pain is directed into yourself.
The driver will continue to play the scenario in his head many, many times over. As much as I hate to say it, he may as well be dead. Because I’m sure that’s what he feels on the inside. He will never be the same again – his mates are dead – and depending on your belief system they may be in heaven, they may be reincarnated, they may just be feeding worms in the ground – but they do not feel one ounce of this terrible mess.
I feel terribly sorry for the parents of ALL of the young men involved. To lose a child is devastating – whilst I have not lost a child myself, I have lost a brother, many years ago, and my parents lost a child, and I know first hand the sadness that it brings. Four sets of parents have lost sons in the physical sense, and one set of parents have lost a son too. He may physically be here, but I’m guessing that’s all.
This is powerful writing Liv, passionate without being a senseless, vitriolic rant. Well done.
SJ, I agree with you too to some degree, but see the driver as more of a victim than you do and therefore think there are much better ways of dealing with situation. How? Read on.
To me (and to Liv as well it would appear from the article), the most important issue at stake here is the motivation behind the driver hearing the stories of the victims’ families. What is the point of all of this? In an ideal world, all who were suffering would somehow benefit from this exchange. The grieving families would be able to express their very legitimate grief and anger, the driver would be able to tell how the incident has forever changed his life and both parties could slowly begin to move on.
We don’t live in an ideal world, but a much more utilitarian approach could have been adopted here and wasn’t. Only providing the victims’ families with the opportunity to bombard the driver with their stories sets up an unequal power balance and seems to hold more potential for rage, hatred and enmity than forgiveness, healing and reparation.
Humans can atrociously alter the course of one another’s lives, intentionally, by unfortunate circumstance or by some even more wretched combination of the two. Two recent examples spring to mind which I think are relevant here, the apartheid in South Africa and the murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. What is relevant here in both cases is not so much the horrific ways in which people’s lives were changed for the worse, but the ways in which these traumas were dealt with by victims and their relatives.
In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up in an effort to deal with the violence and human rights abuses that took place under apartheid. One initiative of the TRC was to set up forums where victims and perpetrators of apartheid cruelty were able to come forward and share their stories in a public space. Not only did this provide the opportunity for some of these stories to be uncovered and validated for the first time but it also opened up a space in which victims and perpetrators could meet on equal footing and honestly discuss weeping wounds.
Matthew Shepard’s name might ring a bell as the gay man who was found hanging from a fence after being brutally tortured and beaten on October 6 1998 by Russell Hendersen and James McKinney. Shepard died in hospital shortly after being found and to this day, Hendersen and McKinney can only vaguely elucidate sketchy reasons for their barbarous actions.
At the drawn out inquest into Shepard’s murder, the friends and families of Shepard, McKinney and Hendersen all told their stories. As in the TRC forums, victims and perpetrators met on equal footing. Emerging from these stories came details about the incredibly miserable, unfortunate and underprivileged lives that McKinney and Hendersen had been born into and the terrible decisions they had made. As McKinney faced a likely death sentence, Shepard’s parents brokered a deal sparing McKinney’s life. An excerpt of Shepard’s Dad’s interaction with McKinney explaining this deal is below:
“I would like nothing better than to see you die, Mr. McKinney. However, this is the
time to begin the healing process, to show mercy to someone who refused to show
any mercy, to use this as the first step in my own closure about losing Matt…Mr.
McKinney, I’m going to grant you life, as hard as it is for me to do so, because of
Matthew…You robbed me of something very precious and I will never forgive you for
that. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May
you have a long life and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”
Although so much can and has been written on these two examples, I’ll keep it short(er). I’m not saying these two processes or their end results are perfect by any means. But I do think they demonstrate something very important. In both cases, victims and perpetrators were able to confront each other as equals, meeting face to face to publicly voice tales of pain, hurt, grief and anger and to hear those of others.
I feel a public space in which both parties are able to tell their stories is vital if there’s any chance of growing or moving on from godawful situations. In the case discussed in Liv’s article, stories of both the perpetrator and the families of the victims need to be treated with the respect they deserve. The process of bombarding the driver with myriad horrific stories ironically lessens their impact almost to the point of redundancy. Saddest of all, this process painfully ignores any potential these stories may hold for anyone being able to move on with their lives.
PS. Sandi, you’re comment wasn’t up when I started writing mine so apologies for not including you at the start of it when I mention Liv and SJ. Our comments seem to have a similar vibe though. Phew!
PPS. That’s meant to say your, not you’re.
Andrew, absolutely. ABSOLUTELY. In a situation like this, there is more to be gained by giving the ‘perpetrator’ and the ‘victims’ equal footing to express themselves. If the courts are genuinely interested in a scheme that is effective and bears a well rounded impact, then this is what they should consider looking at.
“That FIVE young men are to blame – because each allowed the situation to escalate.” Being in a car is not the same as driving a car, and this is quite an assumption. If I drive my friend home after a night out, and kill her, she’s as much to blame is she ?
I’m sorry, but if someone told me someone I loved had been killed by someone else’s thoughtless actions, I would never be able to feel pity for their guilt. Being involved in an accident is quite different to endangering people, which is what I see this as.
Personally I just don’t feel there should be such a sob story for someone responsible for killing others via reckless behaviour. (NOT a blameless accident) I hear and understand all these points of oh how awful, he has to live with it for the rest of his life, nobody understands it like he does, he was there, but you know what, there is a simple method of avoiding such torment and guilt, don’t kill your friends in a high speed stunt.
Wow, such a debate, I will have to engage at a less ridiculous hour.
My first thought is that this kind of “punishment” (in every sense, for the driver and for the family) is similar to the debate over the death penalty. The penalty allows victims to feel a sense of retribution but is arguably a less harsh punishment than life imprisonment. We’re still in a world where people who are emotionally wounded are quick to accept “an eye for an eye” as a form of emotional compensation. However, this case is different in that the driver is obviously affected by the tragedy to a very similar degree and that should be taken onto account when putting him through organised trauma.
SJ, you are right, being in a car is not the same as driving a car. Driving 30km/h over the speed limit is silly. How long did they drive so fast for? Did someone say “stop, this is unsafe.” We’ll never know. But, in the hoon, macho, we’re too invincible society we live in, we can only imagine. My issue is that I don’t think this was an ordinary car trip. This wasn’t you or me popping down to the shops. This was a full blown dangerous, speeding trip. That had probably occurred many times before. They all, at some point, were probably involved in reckless behaviour. At the end of the day, we’ll never really know, because we weren’t there.
I think a dose of empathy would do the world some good. Andrew’s suggestion, that both parties need to have a say, is spot on.
I think everyone needs to remember that this was not an attack – a young man did not approach four others and kill them, with pure murder as his intention. A young man was driving a car with his four friends and an accident occurred. The same way a mother drives her car and has an accident and her two children die. The boys’ accident occurred because they were being foolish and reckless. We can only imagine them all spurring each other on, to drive faster, to speed more. It doesn’t matter how much you want to paint the driver as horrible, there is no way in hell he locked his four mates in a car and took them on a joy ride, unwillingly. They were all in the car, participating in this mess. Yes, the driver was the person in “control”, but don’t tell me four other young men could not have stopped the situation, had they have thought about it a little more. This has happened many times before, and will happen again. The real problem is that people don’t learn. Maybe if people respected their lives, and others, a little more, these situations would be greatly avoided.
SJ, I agree that the driver should pay for what he has done. He must. I would expect nothing less if my friend, or son, had died. But I don’t believe he is evil. I don’t believe he is the only person at fault. I don’t believe such Court methods achieve anything, if they are one-sided, as Andrew pointed out.
What I do believe is that people can learn from their mistakes. People can change. People can evolve. For all we know, with the right assistance, the driver could grow to do something truly wonderful for this world. Everything happens for a reason. That is the only truth that I firmly believe. We just don’t know what it is yet.
Great piece Liv!
It’s great to see that we can all express our opinions and not get abused!
Andrew is spot on, both the victims and perpetrators have to stand on equal grounds. But in this case I think the line between the perpetrators and victims are blurred. Yes, the kid did speed and ended up killing his mates and hence the responsibility for their lives, but in this he is also a victim to a car accident. If no deaths were involved and only the driver was seriously injured, he would have came back from 3 years of physical therapy and people would be giving words of encouragement and support, not berating him.
I feel the problem we have here is that everyone is a victim. The driver is the easiest to blame and as Sam said we are quick to accept the Eye for an Eye compensation. There is no right or wrong. Everybody does stupid things, it’s when it affects our lives that we take notice of our stupidity.
For the Court to arrange such a hearing after such a long period of time will only open up old wounds for both the parents and the driver. If this is a public exercise to create controversies at the expense of both parties I think the court has succeeded
SJ, Sandi, Liv and everyone, I think getting tangled up in conversations about the level of driver vs passenger culpability or how much of a victim/perpetrator anyone was in this situation is interesting but ultimately unfruitful. The situation provokes such strong emotion that it’s like trying to convince an atheist that God exists or a Marxist that they should eat McDonalds. You can argue until the cows come home that the driver is guilty as sin or the passengers knew they were risking their lives by hopping in the car but at the end of the day, costly exchanges have taken place, people get upset and noone changes their opinion or learns anything.
Not only are none of us familiar enough with the circumstances to do anything other than speculate about these kinds of details, but this pointless speculation also distracts us from the deeper, more important issue here. Time spent establishing blame is time wasted. Working out the best way in which to proceed from here in order to quell intense post-crash suffering is time worthy. There has to be a better approach than the one that was adopted in this situation. A public space in which all those affected by the crash can share their stories whilst on an equal footing is a good way to start.
Okay, just popping in with the next development of the case. The driver has been jailed for two years. When the verdict was read out, the families of the victims clapped.
Interesting piece; reasonable sentence.
Two points:
1. The purpose of reading out the victim impact statements in court is to involve victims in the court process and make them feel heard. Its also supposed to benefit the judge.
2. Its natural to assume that everyone has your goodness. They don’t. This guy may be wracked with guilt and go on to live a blameless life; he may not.
Look, absolutely in regards to point number 2. In regards to point numer 1, I agree with Andy Geeves (above). If this kid feels no remorse for what he did, then it pretty much goes without saying he’s sociopathic, which has huge rammifications when you look at the possibility of intent, or indeed his sentencing, or any legal aspect of the case.
I understand the point of Victim Impact Statements in regards to letting the victims feel as if they are being heard – but I don’t know if it works as a blanket rule across all situations.