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I think it's a bit daft fining the mega-rich, not exactly punishment is it?
It's laughable more than anything.
I cannot understand how the law approaches drunk driving when the offender has either been convicted of it before or has multiples of the permitted alcohol level in his/her bloodstream. Why should they be allowed to drive again?
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
He's clearly well-liked as an entertainer - and I hope he gets the help he needs to overcome his problems and comes back from it, to INSPIRE people in similar condition that there is a way out and a way back from it. He could become a very important person in helping others to overcome their problems...
As for the money thing? Is it really important? Is that all its about? I think the world is currently too worked up about money and how much others have or haven't got... its kinda irrelevant really and doesn't resolve the underlying problem here.
As an aside - my own father was an alcoholic. It ruined him without anyone's need to punish him. It was a completely self-contained destruction. He went from being a great guy (with some issues) to being a proper full on addict who would do anything for another drink - thats hard to watch when you are 13 years old, believe me. He died in 1996 in a homeless shelter in Bristol from pneumonia, brought on by sleeping rough - he'd got to rock bottom in just 12 years from being thrown out by my mum (bear in mind, he still was keeping a job/career going at this point as an Optician). When they found him in the morning the other 'inmates' at the hostel had stripped him naked and stolen *everything* from him - not that there was much in those three carrier bags, aside from a couple of pics of me and my sister and a few keepsakes.
So be not so quick to judge others - you really don't understand what they are dealing with.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Would be harsh to say they can never drive again. I've got a couple of friends who used to have alcohol issues. As far as I know, neither of them has touched a drop in around 20 years. If they had got done for drink driving before they had cleaned themselves up, then it wouldn't really be fair on them that they couldn't drive now.
I don't think that those of us who haven't experienced it have any real understanding of alcoholism. There was a guy at my work who drank himself to death. We didn't know he even had a real problem with it. he used to drink at home, and not tell anyone. He must have known what it was doing to him but he couldn't stop. People with a genuine alcohol dependency just don't think rationally about it.
I don't know how bad Ant's situation is, but he only lives half a mile or so from me, and by all accounts he spends a lot of time in one or two of the local pubs. With all he's going through splitting up from his wife, that won't have helped his mental state either.
£86,000 will make no difference to this guy. I think pretty much everyone would agree that a fine big enough to actually hurt him (it'd have to be millions, I guess) would be OTT. In those circumstances some kind of non-financial penalty should be imposed
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
He has been fined a significant fraction of his weekly income, which is still a lot of money even though he's clearly very rich and that in practical terms it might not make that much difference to him.
He's been banned from driving for a substantial period, which again although it won't inconvenience him very much, does take away an important element of his freedom and will have a financial cost.
He's been extremely stupid, but he appears to have accepted it was his fault and to be remorseful. I'm sure he's aware that it could have been a lot worse if he'd gone head-on into the first car rather than the second.
I'm not a fan, by the way...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Yet with all those conjuring skills he still wore that ridiculous syrup.
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Community sentencing with celebrities brings it's own problems so financial penalty and disqualification was almost certain. As noted above he seems to have shown contrition and all the right responses about seeking help with his alcohol problem. He can pay to do a course to reduce his disqualification down to 15 months as well.