Caroline Flack v Kay McFarlane,

what is it with verging on middle aged women doing fook ups and then being reported as "only young"

drink driving is an asshole's crime

How terribly sad. Why though? It's just a motoring offence. A year's ban and she learns her lesson and won't do it again.

she could have got up to a year in prison

she probably wouldn't have cos of our stupid sentencing laws mind

She would have been struck off the roll I expect.

I don't think so for a crime like that. Her practice cannot have been in good nick tho.

Mindful of the fact people who knew her might be reading this, it doesn't appear to be "just a motoring offence" and that she was troubled. Very sad.

She could have gone to prison for a year. Bad choices made but it’s very sad that people get so desperate.

She wouldn't be struck off! SDT would usually just give a fine after the second offence.

Bentines - maybe you can't not drink but you can always not drive. It's not sad, it's selfish idiocy.

Modern day stresses culminating with the preverbial straw that breaks the camels back.

While both results are tragic, their lives leading up to them taking their own lives can only have have been filled with too much stress.

Modern life is too stressful for many people. There's little or no time to relax properly. Even going on holiday for some means they have to fill it with culture and sightseeing etc, rather than vegitating and reading a book. Doing some yoga. Giving their minds a rest as well as their bodies.

For example, and many of you could be guilty of this. Too many of my colleagues take their work phones on holiday with them, checking emails a few days before they come home, so they don't have a mountain to deal with on the first day back. That's not good practice.

I delete all the emails I get when I have been away. If it hasn't been dealt with while I was away and it is still important, they will send another. If it is really important, call me.

Er, wrong way round. People need to drive for their livelihoods etc. You can always just not drink. But it seems a bit trite to point that out when someone's just died.

you can get a bus

west coast scots are snobs about the bus, tho

an alcoholic can be compelled to drink

there is no such thing as caroholism

and it is not trite to point out that drink driving is an asshole's crime

and 34 or 35 is not "a girl" it's a woman with the necessary life experience to know what she was choosing to risk

Clergham has gone full MRA and I am loving it

is hotnow's work here done?

verging on middle aged women

heh - she was 34

i don’t think u hit middle age until about 45 - i.e. the average age u no longer have the chance to have children and the same applies to men

I would say the same about a male drink driver

an asshole's crime

it's just less common for "aww he was JIST a wee laddie" takes when a man does it

Ok and she had some addiction issues it seems, but remember there may be people close to her that lurk here especially on a Friday, let’s try to take our judgey hats off on this subject for now?

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding this, she obviously had colleagues, friends and family so my heart goes out to them.

Delphi, middle aged is obviously not defined in statute (and some women get pregnant at 50 what a weird test)

but at 35 you are halfway to 70 which is a normal age to die

when thinking about age / youthfulness I always remember the ISIS test. 35 is not young in a society stripped of niceties.

All I ask for is no double standards. Seems beyond some though.

teclis they don't have the internet in Ayr don't worry

that’s y i wrote average, obviously

life expectancy is 83 for women in the uk so that’s a self-pwn from u right there m7

life expectancy isn't a particularly meaningful measure is it

to die at 35 is not that omg like you had a go at stuff and now you'll miss the downhill bit

i dunno wot the isis test is. but for me 35 is still reasonably young and i can’t really distinguish the age of most women 35-45 (or men)

that’s a generalisation, yes, before u come back with some exception rhammers

5 times over the limit suggests this wasn't a well thought out decision.

u brought up life expectancy!

5 times over the limit in Scotland is still sober enough to know you are choosing a dick move

"oh but the First bus is full ae gadgies I need ma motor"

another driver had to perform an emergency break

she can get in the sea

"you can get a bus"

You can get a 'bus in London between the office and the station. You can't get a 'bus in a provincial town if you're over 21 and have a job.

Scottish limits are stricter than England, so this would be more like 3 times over down here

Also pretty sure rational decision making on driving doesn't come into it if you're compelled to drink

of course it fooking does

a person needs to drink

they DO NOT EVER need to drive

*a person who is an alocoholic

obv

Er...

what?

What is it with verging on middle aged women getting upset when other verging on middle aged women are called "only young" when they die

"she can get in the sea"

not to worry she already did.

because it's infantilising shit

she wasn't a baby she was a grown-ass woman who should take the opprobrium merited by her idiotic move

It's a reference to her dying earlier than she should have. It's not a reference to whether she's old enough to take responsibility for her crime. Most people arent focusing on that now.

and that is the other thing. a lesson that no matter how shitty you are in life, if you are a chick and you off yourself everyone will say aw she was just a wee girl tho.

when someone is killed in a car accident that is sad (for those left behind)

when they choose to kill themselves to escape judgement for a horrible thing they did, it is their choice

maybe you can't not drink but you can always not drive. It's not sad, it's selfish idiocy.

yup, this.

If anything is infantile it's you wibbling about how she should go to jail for a year because she's done something that was a "dick move". When she's dead.

If people went to jail for being an asshole the whole of rof would be banged up, you would be first in line.

and 34 is young, but not too young to know fine well that drink driving is potentially if not actually dangerous. She was running her own law firm apparently so if she's mature enough to do that, she's mature enough not to DD.

oh shut up spurius you hysterical girlhands

people should go to prison for committing serious, selfish, life-endangering crimes

she should absolutely have gone to prison

instead she decided not to

her choice

I mean it is pretty unique in being a crime for which (absent fleeing a zombie horde or eating a mad Dundee cake) there is no reasonable excuse or explanation

"when they choose to kill themselves to escape judgement for a horrible thing they did, it is their choice"

That's an abhorrent thing to say. You deny that anyone could be in a weakened mental state and therefore not making reasoned or rational decisions. It is not always their choice. It can be the only way they can see an escape from their state of mind.

> let's raise a media tsunami for Kay...

OK, I think you may be deliberately misunderstanding my intentions here peeps...

She wouldn't have gone to prison, you loon. She'd have been banned from driving for 12 months.

I don't think suicide is an irrational choice for anyone.

I definitely don't think most suicides lack capacity to make decisions (ask any psychiatrist).

I think "I am going to kill myself" is not a reason to change the world around you. You either have to adapt or not adapt.

Was Clergs this ragey about Flacky?

Putting people in danger is not as bad actually hitting them is it?

I see my plea for a few days of respectful nonjudgmental posts on this topic went down well.

ducks you are right ofc

maybe she thought it was a risk

it was probably very embarrassing

but not exactly uncommon round those parts

wibble -I don't know if a comparison is helpful but arguments can get out of hand. Drink driving is a binary choice.

Only if you choose to frame it that way.

there is no other way to flipping frame it! it is inexcusable.

Heh. I can only assume you calling other people hysterical is deliberate trolling.

Your last post is a post which is unique in that there is no reasonable excuse or explanation.

@10.52

spurius, I am taking from this that you drink drive. and will be all woe about it if you get caught.

I don't understand how hard it is to realise that when you're drunk your judgement is impaired (that's sort of the point...)

So decisions you make when drunk are obviously going to be non-ideal when compared to being sober. Otherwise nobody would ever have done something stupid when drunk

I also find the lack of basic empathy amazing

Those are two different things.

There are many ways to frame it, which is whey there is a range of penaties the courts can choose to apply .

darrell - are you confusing alcohol with scopolamine or sthg?

Have done in the past. Not now. If I had been caught, a bunch of wee radgy aunts throwing rotten vegetables and ensuring I went to jail because they had nothing better to do with their lives would have been an utterly pointless exercise.

so basically you are an arrogant arsehole who admits to having broken the law by committing the most inexcusable crime on the books and only "wee radgy aunts" could possibly want to see the great lord spurius punished for it

it wouldn't be pointless because if more people like you were sent down, fewer people would drink and drive

and fewer people would now be in long term care facilities having been injured by a drink driver (a much much worse fate than just dying)

you really are quite a piece of shit

"oh but I feel compassion see me perform my compassion"

"the most inexcusable crime on the books "

are you sniffing glue ffs?

I don't do it and I agree it should be procesucuted but this is just very daft bollocks.

name a more inexcusable crime

ok I guess you could have a brain tumour that inhibits your ability to make good decisions but those brain tumours are not that common

note I didn't say most serious crime

I said most inexcusable

raping and torturing children.

"are you sniffing glue ffs?"

Yes, but I'll make sure I don't drive for a while.

wibble - only people who have something entirely wrong with their brain would do that

it's not the act of a rational officeworker on their way home

drink driving, by contrast, is a choice by a sane individual to do something that could have completely horrific consequences

i mean, uber apps are a thing

wtf

You are wrong and being mental about this.

I have nothing else to say to you.

Thank fook you are not any kind of judge. Even the most minor kind. Especially the most minor kind.

Can imagine the judgment.

"Mr drink driver. You really are quite a piece of shit. I feel no compassion. See me perform my lack of compassion. Sadly the death sentence is not available to me accordingly I sentence you to life imprisonment. In summary, this was a dick move."

you don't have any compassion - you just think "fook that could have been me"

that's not the same

you are not a good person

extremely sad situation.

Clergs reaction to this lawyers suicide makes me think that she is jealous of not having the guts to follow through on her own plans when she was telling everyone she was thinking about ending her own life a while ago.

Why else would someone be so dissmissive of other peoples mental state when making poor/bad decisions.

Firstly that’s rubbish tarquin, secondly let’s not be so dismissive and flippant about someone taking their own life in that way please Warlord.

That much alcohol in your system, the capacity for anything approaching rational thought or decision making has long gone

"she is jealous of not having the guts to follow through on her own plans when she was telling everyone she was thinking about ending her own life a while ago"

this is one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen posted on here and the competition is fierce.

struck off for drunk driving? Never. Not even for death by. And rightly not - doesn’t affect suitability to be a solicitor - could happen to anyone.

Clergs - Ms McFarlane was ill. She had spent time at a residential unit trying to address her problems. Her judgment was impaired before she got to the bottle.

You are not a good person.

there is no illness that compels you to drive and crash your car into a hospital

I regularly drink 5 pints without my driving ability being in any way impaired

That says more about your driving ability when sober than drunk.

Yes there is. One of them is called alcoholism. It causes you to do stupid things.

Stupid things for which you should be punished but also which should invite help for future avoidance, except in a society peopled by you apparently.

If her judgment was that impaired by alcoholism, she probably shouldn't have been practising tbh

apparently she had also had her licence revoked

i didn't know that was a thing

wonder where she got the car

Chr1st some real barrel scraping stuff on this thread from multiple people.

cant we all just agree that (a) drunk driving is very bad (b) being an alcoholic inevitably leads to some extremely poor decision making and (c) regardless of what someone has or hasn’t done, killing themselves is (I) not indicative of a healthy mental state and (II) extremely sad for all remaining family and friends and therefore not a time to be piling on?

Yeah all of that is sad

heh @ the selective sympathies of the coven

alcoholism’s an illness

most drink drivers are ill

Yes she was ill. That's very sad. So probably not fit to be practising.

calling women witches because they contradict your predictable contrarianism doesn't make you look like the good guy you think you are FYI

As to whether she had such poor judgement that she should not have been practising - judgement goes to competence which is policed by the law of negligence, and the risk dissipated by insurance. The SRA striking off process is largely limited to policing character. I don’t really think a drink driving rap says much about one’s character, in most cases.