Fatal M2 Faversham crash leads to man being jailed for 12 years
Both the vehicles were travelling between junctions six and five on the London-bound carriageway when the crash, which was captured on Amaglo's dashcam, happened. After initially pleading not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, he changed his plea.He was banned from driving for 18 years and two months and a further charge of causing death by careless driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs was ordered to remain on file.Det Con Sara Capozzi said: "Amaglo's driving that morning was truly appalling and resulted in the most tragic of consequences."I hope that the custodial sentence he has received offers opportunity for him to reflect on his thoughtless and grossly irresponsible actions, which led to the loss of a much-loved and cherished woman's life."
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Times
28 minutes ago
- Times
How drivers were sold a car finance compensation fantasy
Britain has narrowly avoided a costly car finance compensation free-for-all after a landmark court ruling derailed chances of a payout for millions of drivers. Claims lawyers had been bombarding consumers with adverts suggesting they may have been entitled to thousands of pounds in a scandal over hidden commission on car finance deals. The scandal had been expected to rival the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, which cost banks more than £38 billion. It was thought that nearly 15 million drivers could be entitled to payouts worth as much as £44 billion in total — although Friday's Supreme Court ruling means the numbers are set to be far smaller. Questions have now been raised over whether those using car finance really lost out and how many of them deserve compensation at all. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had tried to intervene ahead of the ruling — arguing that a colossal compensation bill for the industry would damage the economy and consumers. The Supreme Court ruled on three cases where consumers bought cars on finance and argued that they had been treated unfairly because they had not been told about commission involved in their deals — which ranged from £183 to £1,651. The court rejected two of the three cases, but upheld a complaint by Marcus Johnson, a factory worker from south Wales — because in his case the £1,651 commission in his loan was 55 per cent of the fee (including interest) on his loan over five years. 'The fact that the undisclosed commission was so high is a powerful indication that the relationship between Mr Johnson and the lender was unfair,' the court's judgment said. It leaves the door open to claims for compensation on deals that contained large amounts of commission, or where the commission model influenced what they paid. How much would be needed for a deal to be unfair is something that is likely to be decided by the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which said it would confirm if it would introduce a redress scheme before stock markets open on Monday morning. The FCA had been investigating finance deals that had used a model called discretionary commission, which incentivised dealers to give customers a worse interest rate on their loan. However, a judgment by the Court of Appeal last October opened the door to compensation claims by millions of motorists who had bought cars on finance, regardless of the commission model. Lenders appealed to the Supreme Court over the ruling. About nine in ten cars are bought on finance and £39.7 billion was borrowed on more than two million cars in the year to May, according to the Finance and Leasing Association, a trade body. The Court of Appeal had ruled in October that car dealers had a duty to make clear the nature and value of any commission paid to them to ensure that borrowers could give 'informed consent' before agreeing to a deal. Reeves was among those concerned about a claims free-for-all, with the Treasury reportedly drawing up contingency plans to shield lenders from having to pay out billions of pounds in compensation. The Treasury attempted to intervene in the Supreme Court case, arguing that a ruling had 'the potential to adversely affect the United Kingdom's reputation as a place to do business, with a consequent impact on economic growth'. In the meantime complaints about car loans to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), a body that solves disputes, have risen from 4,130 in the first three months of 2023-24 to 37,230 in the last three months of 2024-25. Most of these have been brought by claims companies and no-win, no-fee law firms that file complaints on behalf of consumers in return for up to 30 per cent of any compensation. These companies have swamped radio, social media and television with adverts that tell consumers they could be owed thousands of pounds. On Thursday the FCA said it had required 224 adverts from claims firms about car finance to either be taken down or changed. There had been highly speculative figures advertised for how much consumers could get back, it said, including compensation figures that did not make clear they covered multiple car loans and misleading claims that refunds were guaranteed. It said companies had been signing up consumers without their consent after they clicked on adverts. Philip Salter, a former FCA regulator now at the consultancy Sicsic Advisory, said: 'I haven't liked a lot of the claims company advertising. You've had a lot of companies arguing that time is running out, but the clock hasn't even started. It's been a bit of an unseemly scramble.' • Common sense has triumphed over compensation culture If there is to be compensation for consumers, it is expected that the FCA will announce a free redress scheme where lenders will contact those eligible, meaning consumers should not need to use a claims company. Gary Greenwood from the investment bank Shore Capital said: 'It's one of those things where if you go by the letter of the law of the previous Court of Appeal judgment, you're almost coming to the conclusion that commission is bad. But the problem is that if you look at the reality of what had happened, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of consumer harm that's gone on. 'So any sort of redress has got to come down to: has there been any consumer harm here, or are people just trying to claim money back on a technicality?' Greenwood said. Charlie Nunn, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, which runs Britain's biggest car finance lender, Black Horse, has denied the scandal was on the same level as PPI. 'Some 80 per cent of people need finance to buy a new car, and a large number of second-hand car buyers do as well,' he told The Times in January. 'We need a well-functioning motor finance industry that supports consumers.' The National Franchised Dealers Association, a trade body, told the Supreme Court that 'nobody goes to a car dealer with a reasonable expectation that it is acting without self-interest in relation to any of the products it sells'. The Supreme Court's judgment could have been the difference between lenders facing a compensation bill of £11 billion — for complaints about a specific form of commission — and £29 billion, according to Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, an investment bank. It could also have led to compensation claims about the sale of other financial products such as insurance where commission was involved but not properly disclosed. Consumers in turn could have had to foot the bill. Stuart Masson, the editor of the advice website The Car Expert UK, said that if lenders have to pay compensation to millions of people, car finance could get more expensive in the future as the industry tries to 'claw back' that money. 'That's not money they're going to find down the back of the sofa,' he told the BBC. 'They're going to have to get that back from increasing the costs of future lending, which won't just be on car finance. It could be on credit cards, it could be on personal loans, it could be on mortgages.' In January Reeves told bankers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: 'There is nothing pro-consumer about making it harder for people to buy an affordable car for their family.' Before the courts widened the scope of possible mis-selling, the FCA had been investigating a specific model of commission called discretionary commission. This is where the cut that lenders paid dealers was linked to the interest rate consumers were charged, incentivising dealers to charge borrowers more. This model was used in about 35 per cent of car finance deals, according to the FCA, before it banned the practice in January 2021. The FCA said consumers could have paid about £1,100 more in interest over a four-year £10,000 car finance deal because of this commission model — which is being used as the basis for many of the estimates around possible compensation. Salter, who worked on the ban when he was at the FCA, said: 'That previous Court of Appeal ruling surprised me. I think everyone knows that if they're buying a car the salesman's getting commission, don't they? But discretionary commission never felt right to me.' The FCA began its investigation in January last year on whether consumers had been properly told about the link between their repayments and the commission. The investigation was kicked off by two rulings by the ombudsman against Lloyds and Barclays last year, which ordered the banks to refund two consumers more than £1,000 each. The FCA is expected to set out its next steps, including whether there will be a redress scheme, within six weeks. Any scheme would be free and easy for consumers to use, it said, while the FOS is also free for consumers to appeal to. Rob Lilley-Jones from the consumer group Which? said: 'It's vital that finance firms are held accountable for mis-selling and if a large number of motorists are eligible for compensation consumers are likely to be bombarded with ads from claims firms offering to take on their case. 'Affected customers should be careful when enlisting the services of claims management companies as the wrong choice could lead to their case being poorly handled, losing a significant portion of the compensation in legal fees — or both.' Coby Benson from the law firm Bott & Co, which helped win the ombudsman's case against Lloyds, said the experience from PPI was that consumers could sometimes recover more money by going to court than through a redress scheme. He said: 'We would support a proactive redress scheme if it fairly compensated consumers. But we have doubts over the effective implementation of a scheme, because our data shows that about half of clients have a different address now to that which the lender had from the time of the agreement.'
BBC News
28 minutes ago
- BBC News
Businessman funds security guards to patrol Bedford town centre
A businessman has spent £10,000 on private security guards in a town centre which he said had seen a "massive increase in anti-social behaviour".Peter McCormack, who owns Real Bedford Football Club, is bankrolling the Guardian Angel-style patrols of Bedford town centre this McCormack said that "we used to have policing in the town" but now it was "very, very rare", and he added that his girlfriend was afraid to visit with her Tizard, the Labour police commissioner for Bedfordshire, described the move as a "political stunt" and said "reported anti-social behaviour was the lowest it had been for a long time". The guards from Belmont Guard Security Services will wear bodycams, and Mr McCormack said he wanted a set-up similar to the New York-based Guardian Angels, who patrol more than 130 cities, including said people should view his patrols as being "like scarecrows", and that if they spotted someone taking drugs or causing trouble, they would "ask them nicely to move on".He added that his team "knew the town and the people causing problems well", and they would report any issues to the McCormack told the BBC he had met officers before launching the Hob Hoque, of Bedfordshire Police, said the force "welcomed the opportunity" to work with Mr McCormack but officers were already working "tirelessly, day in, day out, to keep Bedfordshire safe, particularly in town centres".According to police data, there have been more than 1,000 incidents of anti-social behaviour in the town centre in the two years up to March 2025, accounting for almost 20% of the total in the by Tizard, Bedford's Conservative mayor Tom Wootton has approved an updated Public Spaces Protection Order to tackle anti-social behaviour, which police and authorised council staff will be able to enforce. The commissioner said the police were doing a good job and had made more arrests and issued more fixed penalty notices since the launch of his Safer Streets initiative in six Bedfordshire town centres in said there were problems with people abusing drugs and alcohol in Bedford and admitted some people might not always feel safe, but he added there was now an average of four officers a day patrolling the also confirmed live facial recognition would also be introduced in the town said there was a role for private security, but only in shops and hospitality the commissioner called the project a political stunt, Mr McCormack said he had "zero interest" in entering the next mayoral contest in Bedford, scheduled for 2027. Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
BBC News
28 minutes ago
- BBC News
Council condemns drivers breaching Lowestoft bridge safety lights
More than 100 breaches of a bridge's red safety lights have been branded as "irresponsible" by a March and July 112 motorists using the Gull Wing Bridge in Lowestoft were caught racing through the lights to avoid waiting for the bridge to be raised, Suffolk County Council the Highways Code, motorists at flashing red lights at places like lifting bridges must stop. Failure to do so could result in penalty points or West, the council's cabinet member for operational highways, said tougher measures were being considered to tackle the issue and prevent accidents including installing automatic number plate recognition cameras. "I'm surprised it is so high," he said. "It's irresponsible driving. The majority of people are law abiding and are very sensible, but a very tiny minority are trying to jump the red lights and it only puts themselves and others in danger."Obviously one or two people always try these things, but we need to get across the message that the barrier and the red lights are there for a reason - to protect all road users. People need to adhere to that even if they're in a hurry."They need to stop at the red light, that's the safe thing to do." West added that taxpayers have to bear the cost of repairing any damage to the began recording breaches after they noticed more one occasion a van raced through and collided with the barrier, leaving it inoperable until it was council was pursuing a claim for the costs, but West said this would not be possible to do in every case. The authority was also considering putting ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras in place."It isn't something we're ruling out, we're looking at that seriously because we've got to get those numbers of people jumping the red light down," West bridge opened in September and is the third crossing over Lake Lothing. Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
