A Perverse Decision..?

His lawyers argued his sentence was "too harsh", saying the crown court judge didn't take enough account of his previous good character - including the fact he had no history of bad driving, despite motoring around 30,000 miles-a-year for work.

They also said the road was "completely unsuitable" for pedestrians, so he hadn't expected anyone to be there, and he was "genuinely remorseful" for what he had done.

And that worked..?

Well, yes, surprisingly:

Allowing the appeal, Mr Justice Owen said that four years was "excessive" in the circumstances of the case, and reduced the sentence to two-and-a-half years.

The judge, sitting with Lady Justice Hallett and Mrs Justice Lang, also reduced Smith's driving ban, but said he will still have to take an extended driving test before being allowed back on the road.

Well, maybe the accident itself wasn’t entirely avoidable, and it’s right that the sentence should reflect that.

But it seemed they didn’t take into account his actions after the crash:

The court heard Smith was driving at 55mph on a "pitch black" road, which had no street lighting, with his headlamps dipped.

A traffic investigator found Smith would have only had 1.5 seconds to react to seeing Mr Davis - who was wearing dark clothes - and it was "highly unlikely" he could have avoided him.

The prosecution case was that, had he been driving more slowly, or had his lights on full beam, he would have had time to see Mr Davis and could have escaped hitting him.

After the collision, Smith drove the badly-damaged car to a friend's house, where he said he had hit a deer and left it to be repaired.

I’d have given him an extra 18 months for that, to bring it back up to the full four years…