On the 25th of March, 2000, Jane Louisa Puffit, 21 years old, and her friend Stacey Parrey, were killed by a drunk and incompetent driver who was permitted to plead guilty to the minor infraction of "dangerous driving," and accept a punishment modest out of proportion with his culpability. Below is an excerpt from a letter written in reaction to this juridical convenience by Simon Baddeley, of the School of Public Policy, Birmingham University, England, to Ms. Puffit's parents, followed by a statement from them explaining the effect this "accident" had upon their lives.

Mr. Baddeley:

The social myopia surrounding road death statistics (compared for instance to reactions to rail fatalities) means that neither the victim nor their friends and neighbours know how to take on board an event whose gravity is still contested. Imagine the circumstances surrounding loss in war or someone murdered by a stranger: such terrible things can at least be subsumed under imperfect but still widely understood mores about giving and seeking comfort and consolation. In the case of road deaths, however, there seems, even among those most directly affected, a willingness to accept as accidental what an unprejudiced eye would see as criminal. This flawed recognition of the gravity of the event--its seriousness minimised because it involved a car and occurred on the road--creates a social limbo that compounds the isolation of those bereaved by reckless driving. Most of those around us are not child molesters, murderers, or people otherwise inclined to violence, but a large percentage of the population are drivers who can often acknowledge--privately to themselves, or even publicly among other drivers--that they have themselves acted with less than total responsibility while at the wheel. For many of them there is a gap between minor delinquencies with fatal consequences and major delinquencies with equally fatal consequences. This fact muddies the moral waters of those who serve on juries or in other ways influence public attitudes. Changing the values that relate to the moral standing of reckless driving involves taking on a culture propped up by millions of fallible humans who drive cars. Social sharing of what has happened will continue to be more difficult than during "normal" tragedies until norms alter. This will require a shared view in the population at large of the gravity of the offence that took Jane from you.

I really hope that the government will be given the strongest encouragement to introduce legislation such that the safest way these days to commit murder or grievous bodily harm and escape with little or no punishment is no longer to use a car or truck to commit the crime.

Firmer legislation is not in itself enough, but one may still work to implement it while acknowledging that there must be another complex process of attitude change that influences the actual behaviour of judges, magistrates and juries. Note for instance that the paper says the matter is not so much about increasing some fairly stiff penalties but getting the courts to exercise them. Changes in laws that were widely perceived as too harsh occurred because juries simply would not convict. This interrelationship between public opinion and legal action seems healthy--but in this case it reminds us of the need to press on in pursuit of changed attitudes and to seek to exercise influence on these through letters to Members of Parliament and councillors, media letters and articles, and public statements to the smallest and largest possible groups.

Regarding Jane Louisa Puffitt, B.A.Hons (Exeter), 18 April 1978-25 March 2000

from whom Trust misplaced exacted the ultimate price

Our daughter Jane, our only child, was born and reared at our home in Weston-super-Mare. She was educated at Wyncroft School, Weston-super-Mare; Colston's Girls School, Bristol, and graduated from the University of Exeter with a second class honours degree in Information Technology in the summer of 1999.

Immediately upon graduation she obtained a full-time position with the National Remote Sensing Centre at Barwell, Hinckley, and thereafter on 13 December 1999 moved to a Graduate Traineeship with Triton Showers PLC in Nuneaton. Jane was not academically gifted but she compensated for this by diligence and determination. In September 1999 she commenced taking classes on two evenings per week at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, studying for a Diploma in Computer Programming so as to supplement her degree and more fully equip herself for her chosen career in Information Technology. At the time of her death she was on the threshold of a new life, of womanhood, and of being able to make the contribution to society that she has worked so hard and wanted so very much to make. All this promise and commitment was tragically extinguished at 10:25 pm on Saturday the 25th of March, 2000.

For my wife, myself, our tiny existing family, and Jane's closest friends, her killing has been a devastation. I quote my wife's words to me:

"I have descended into an abyss of unending and almost unendurable pain. I have become an involuntary emotional and social amputee--a crucial part of me removed forever. The child I gave birth to, reared and loved for so long, has been torn away from me just at a time when she was no longer just my child, but my closest friend; my womanly confidante; my possibility of grandchildren; a potential source of solace in my final years; and someone who one day would have mourned my passing. All that is gone. I am excluded from such simple comforts. I am approached by friends and acquaintances with a mixture of concern and apprehension, for I am no longer part of their world and their experiences. They cannot relate to someone who is enduring such a catastrophe--the termination of all communication with one's only child--nor I to them. I am apart. It is the realisation of one's bleakest nightmare."

As a father and a husband I share these feelings, but for me there is a singular and especial hell. I am much older than my wife. For me there is the sudden and horrifying awareness that the assumption I have always made that after my passing my daughter would provide some measure of comfort and support for her Mother, is no longer valid. She will be alone. There will be no support, for we have no other family members who will be alive at that time, and I know not what to do. I have spent my married life trying to open up choices and opportunities for my wife and daughter. All those choices and opportunities were foreclosed upon by the actions of others on the night of the 25th of March 2000.

An added sadness, if that can be imagined, arising from the death of Jane, is the emotional condition of her longest and closest friend here in Weston-super-Mare, who lives just a few doors along the road and who is twelve months the younger. She loved and still loves Jane. So much so that her parents, her sister, her grandparents, ourselves, and her GP all have the apprehension that before long she may take her own life just to be joined again with Jane. She has been admitted as an emergency to hospital three times already in the past few weeks. God forbid that the tragedy which befell Jane should result in yet further grief, another young woman departing this life before her time, but it is a very real fear and compounds the sadness and despair that we all feel.

We have not lost Jane because of an accident, an unforeseeable event which those in whom she placed her trust simply could not have avoided. All this devastation and desolation is the result of the actions and behaviour of two individuals, Rudie Golds, the driver of the vehicle, and his friend who gave him control of it, its owner Craig Jennings. For Jane and Stacey, trust misplaced in these two men did indeed exact the ultimate price, for it is highly improbable that Jane and Stacey could have known that Golds was neither insured, competent, nor even licensed to drive a vehicle. Even his close and long-standing friend, Jennings, was not apparently aware of these facts, whereas the two men were aware that Jane and Stacey were both experienced and fully licensed to drive, and as we know from their subsequent blood tests were below the blood-alcohol limit. Wanton, unnecessary and untimely death, and the desolation which follows in its wake, and which I have inadequately attempted to describe, is a price which society cannot afford to ignore. It is a price too great. I conclude this statement with a final comment from my wife:

"Jane was my gift from God. As my embryo she lived beneath my heart, as my daughter she has now returned to live therein for all my days. Would that the situation be reversed, me in her heart for many long years to come, but sadly not."

Raymond and Anne Puffitt

This information and the views therein relate only to the impact on us of the killing of our daughter Jane, but we imagine that Mr and Mrs Howes, the parents of Stacey Parry, must be experiencing a similar anguish.

Compiled by Simon Baddeley