How different it would have been ...

... had Mariya Alyokhina been closely connected to President Putin's party United Russia. A quick flash-back to something that happened in February 2010 in Irkutsk where a video caught the car of Anna Shevinkova running down two women pedestrians, one of whom subsequently died.

The driver displays complete callousness in  her subsequent to the accident behaviour yet the police at first refused to treat her as anything but a witness and did not test her for alcohol. Why is that,  one wonders.

Police originally said they did not suspect Miss Shavenkova of any wrongdoing over the accident and were treating her as a witness, according to the Babr.ru website.

It also claimed investigators had not tested her for alcohol after the crash.

The footage resurfaced this week after a website revealed that Miss Shavenkova was a political consultant for United Russia, the pro-Kremlin political party backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

She is the daughter of the Irkutsk region's election committee chairman.

Miss Shavenkova did go on trial but, astonishingly enough, her two-and-a-half year gaol term (only six months than the one dealt out to the Pussy Riot members) was suspended for fourteen years because she had a young child.