Jail term for drunk driver
Robert Gilmore was sentenced to five years for culpable homicide and two years for drunk driving or a fine of R20,000
A TOTI man, Robert Gilmore (65) was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in the Durban Regional Court on Tuesday, 30 September in connection with the death of William Ratcliffe (3).
The toddler was killed in a vehicle accident at the Doonside robots on 15 August, 2012, after Gilmore, who was drunk, collided with William’s mother, Suzette’s car.
She was returning home at about 5.30pm with her two sons, William and James belted into their seats. She had taken the Seadoone off-ramp and was travelling south in the intersection of Kingsway, near the vet, when her BMW collided with Gilmore’s beach buggy.
“On a charge of culpable homicide, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment in terms of Section 276(1)(i). On a charge of drunk driving he was sentenced to a fine of R20,000 or two years imprisonment. The sentences will run concurrently,” said regional communications manager of the National Prosecuting Authority KZN, Natasha Ramkisson-Kara.
Gilmore’s licence was also permanently cancelled.
“This has been a long, difficult journey. Tuesday was two years, one month, two weeks and one day since the accident and losing William. Our grieving process has been stalled while the court process has been ongoing, so what Tuesday means to us is that some form of closure has been achieved and we can now continue with our grieving without having this court case hanging over us. We do not have to focus any more on ‘when is the next court date’, but rather on our future and repairing the broken pieces of our hearts and lives,” said Suzette.
“As far as the sentence itself is concerned, we never anticipated a jail term. We were not going to hold our breath and honestly thought Mr Gilmore would get ‘a slap on the wrist’. The fact that the magistrate sentenced him to prison is a great step forward in sending out the message that if you drink and drive and cause an accident, resulting in a death, you will go to jail. We are very satisfied with the sentence that was handed down. We do not want what happened to our family to happen to another family. We were not driving home from a party or late at night. I was on my way home after fetching the boys from school, it was a normal Wednesday afternoon. There are people in our town who are spending their day in the pubs and then driving home. Our story can easily be repeated. Those people need to know that drinking and driving is a criminal offence and that they will go to jail.”
The prosecutor of the case was senior public prosecutor, Barend Groen and the magistrate was Pumi Shoba.
