By Gabriel Princewill-
Two Merseyside solicitors have withdrawn from a planned private prosecution of Dominic Cummings for alleged driving offences committed on a trip to Barnard Castle during the national lockdown.
James Parry and Kate Welch of Parry & Welch Solicitors had began a legal process at Peterlee Magistrates’ Court in County Durham, but withdrew this morning upon learning that another private group was going for a private prosecution.
The planned charges against the prime minister’s adviser was that he drove with defective eyesight and ‘without reasonable consideration to other road users in circumstances where he knew or believed his eyesight was impaired’ and ‘where he was unsure he was capable of driving safely’.
James Parry(pictured) told The Eye Of Media.Com:
‘we pulled out this morning when we realised someone else was having a go at it. There would have been no point for the court to have to choose who to go with. It would have been a value judgement. They are going on different grounds to us. We felt somebody should do it.
The solicitor firm had planned to use Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988- driving without considerable care- and Section 96, driving with defected eye sight.
Section 96 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 says: ”it is an offence to drive with uncorrected defective eyesight. If you drive a motor vehicle on a road, when your eyesight is uncorrected such that you cannot comply with the eyesight requirements in the act, you will have committed an offence”
Welch and Parry Solicitors deal with dog law, but the legal partners who were former criminal defence lawyers say they feel justice needs to be done.
Asked whether it is possible that Cummings panicked when deciding to travel to Duram.
Kate Welch said: ” Who knows what was on his mind. I think people want to see justice done. I think one of the problems is that he didn’t put his hand up and admit his error. People may have empathised with his situation if he had done that.
The police have investigated his actions and said they are not going to do anything, but with the confession of him driving with bad eye sight, that’s the next avenue.