SINCE losing my daughter to a speeding driver, who for me received a far too lenient sentence for his terrible deed, I have felt that had the victim been the child of a police officer or a politician, the court would have handed down a much stiffer sentence.

However, the speed related death of policeman's son, Michael Gale, where the driver has only been given four years, has proved otherwise.

I wonder where the judge borrowed these words from: "Nothing I can say or do can adequately compensate for the loss of life."

It is a sentiment that has surely been echoed 10,000 times.

Yet what good has it done? What good does it do? For me, and other bereaved parents it is a statement that causes unnecessary upset and damage.

As a member of RoadPeace - the national charity for road crash victims - I have had a very close and long standing relationship with several other families who have lost loved ones to speeding drivers.

Faced with the people who destroyed our families, and subjected to the aforementioned statement, we desperately need to ask: "Why not the maximum 14 years?"

This might not bring a loved one back, but it would go a long, long way to saving someone else's.

Why has a killer driver never been sentenced to 14 years? Even with speed, drugs and alcohol all involved and multiple deaths, sentences have been way short of this.

Had a maximum been given in the past, Michael Gale, my daughter, and many others might still be alive today.

In rape cases, judges regularly hand down multiple life sentences.

Why not with killer drivers? It is time judges stepped down into the world of mere mortals and shared the shattered lives of the bereaved at a support group.

MR D JONES, Olsberg Close, Radcliffe