Killer drivers likely to walk free in 'tougher' new sentencing laws

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If they are found guilty of careless driving, rather than dangerous, they should get a "community penalty", updated guidelines are expected to say.

The rules - to be published later this week - appear to undermine the determination of the Crown Prosecution Service to secure severe punishments for rogue drivers.

Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald QC wants drivers who use mobile phones at the wheel to face jail.

But the Sentencing Guidelines Council has come up with a formula that could mean a driver who kills when talking on a mobile phone could escape prison.

The council is headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips and lays down rules on sentencing for judges and magistrates.

Its latest guidelines are expected to say that when a driver kills through simple carelessness or lack of consideration, he or she should not normally go to prison.

Only those found by the courts to have been "dangerously distracted" by a mobile phone or another electronic device will be routinely jailed.

Others who would not be imprisoned for killing by careless driving will be those found to have been 'undertaking' on the inside, tailgating, running red lights by mistake, or pulling out of side turnings into other vehicles.

Also included in the category of offence which will see a driver who kills escape jail would be "inconsiderate" road behaviour such as cutting from lane to lane to get ahead in traffic, failing to dip headlights and braking without good cause.

The guidelines are intended to help courts deal with road traffic laws brought in in 2006 in response to repeated complaints that those who kill while driving were being dealt with too leniently.

Rachel Burr, of road safety group Brake, said: "Someone who kills through careless driving should go to jail unless there are extremely persuasive mitigating circumstances."