In the interest of fairness
I'm not sure that we should be criticising the courts for the wicked penalties imposed upon this chap.
There may have been a new policy handed down (by stealth) from the Justice Secretary who, in the interest of fairness, may be insisting that any professional person who makes an error of judgement (e.g. a Judge whose decision in a case has been overturned by a higher court) will now have to subject himself to 6 months in prison and face a 10-year ban on working in the legal profession. We are fortunate here in the UK that the law-makers themselves, (Members of Parliament) never make errors of judgement otherwise they, too, may have to face 6 months inside and 10 years off the gravy train.
It would, of course, be "wrong to comment on individual cases" so it would probably be unfair to point out that no pilot has ever been proved to have caused an accident by having this blood-alcohol level, whilst a number of major crimes have followed erroneous decsions by Judges to release criminals back into society to reoffend.
Am I right to be so proud of our Justice system?