Cycling UK Forum

Well I’m a bit confused over where I stand now. The police log as ‘criminal damage’ does not take into consideration that he aimed his vehicle at me on two separate occasions. First to establish his notion that he had right of way and second to corner me so he could verbally abuse me and then lash out and send me and my bike to the ground.
If this goes to court (looking like the only chance of justice) I have no witnesses to back me up. My only chance is that his vehicle has a tacograph so he will have to explain his additional movements.

Ten year old white van so most likely a solo operator 'man with a van' set-up, no tacho requirement for up to 3.5 tonnes. Unlikely to have any additional active telemetrics equipment fitted given the vehicle age. Driver totally out of control and not fit to be in control of a vehicle, especially a lightweight commercial such as this one - get this reported,

peetee wrote:If this goes to court (looking like the only chance of justice) I have no witnesses to back me up. My only chance is that his vehicle has a tacograph so he will have to explain his additional movements.

I suspect that this is going to depend on the quality of your local police force and the officers tasked with investigating these reports, as well as their resources and capacity. If they go to the trouble of formally interviewing him under caution and he denies that he drove around and confronted you on the second occasion, and states that he was not in that place, the police may be able to prove he is lying with the location data for his mobile phone.

Hi

peetee wrote:Well I’m a bit confused over where I stand now. The police log as ‘criminal damage’ does not take into consideration that he aimed his vehicle at me on two separate occasions. First to establish his notion that he had right of way and second to corner me so he could verbally abuse me and then lash out and send me and my bike to the ground.
If this goes to court (looking like the only chance of justice) I have no witnesses to back me up. My only chance is that his vehicle has a tacograph so he will have to explain his additional movements.

I think that you need to speak in more depth to D&C Police about this. It might be that the call log system can only support one category, e.g. criminal damage, but it has been entered on the crime system differently. There are a few choices here including assault (without battery), harassment, criminal damage, public order, etc.
I'd ask for a crime reference number and ask what their course of action is; clear communication is needed so that you understand what they're investigating, why and what you need to do to support that, e.g. photos, estimates for repair, etc
I'd go back to the scene and look for CCTV on shop fronts, inside shops, etc
Regards
tim-b

slowster wrote:That is logical because if there is a successful prosecution you would automatically win a subsequent civil action for damages, because the standard of proof for a criminal prosecution (beyond reasonable doubt) exceeds the standard for civil action (balance of probabilities). Even if there is an unsuccessful prosecution that would not prevent you winning a civil action (because of the lower standard of proof), and again it may be better to wait for the outcome of the prosecution to be able to use the evidence gathered by the police in the civil action.

It isn't automatic. Any civil action would stand or fall on its own merits which could include disputing the facts even if they had led to a conviction. But the burden of proof is lower, and there is now a principle which connects the separate proceedings very closely, see 11,2:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/64/part/II/crossheading/convictions-etc-as-evidence-in-civil-proceedings

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote:It isn't automatic. Any civil action would stand or fall on its own merits which could include disputing the facts even if they had led to a conviction. But the burden of proof is lower, and there is now a principle which connects the separate proceedings very closely, see 11,2:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/64/part/II/crossheading/convictions-etc-as-evidence-in-civil-proceedings

It's not automatic in the sense that there would be a hearing in court, and the civil action is a separate legal process from the criminal prosecution for the same act, but the outcome would be all but a foregone conclusion.

It would not matter how much the defence disputed the facts, if a criminal court had convicted based on the same evidence, the civil court would have no choice but to give a decision consistent with the verdict of the criminal court. A different outcome would only occur if there were important new evidence which had not been presented at the criminal trial, and in that situation I expect that the civil action would be stayed pending the outcome of an appeal against the criminal conviction.

slowster wrote:

Jdsk wrote:It isn't automatic. Any civil action would stand or fall on its own merits which could include disputing the facts even if they had led to a conviction. But the burden of proof is lower, and there is now a principle which connects the separate proceedings very closely, see 11,2:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/64/part/II/crossheading/convictions-etc-as-evidence-in-civil-proceedings

It's not automatic in the sense that there would be a hearing in court, and the civil action is a separate legal process from the criminal prosecution for the same act, but the outcome would be all but a foregone conclusion.

It would not matter how much the defence disputed the facts, if a criminal court had convicted based on the same evidence, the civil court would have no choice but to give a decision consistent with the verdict of the criminal court.

It's precisely as worded in the cited Act.The civil court starts with the fact of the criminal conviction. After that it has complete "choice" to come to its own findings. And it may be deciding something rather different.

Jonathan

The police have called to discuss the matter further. I said I wasn’t happy it had been logged as criminal damage and asked them to take into account that he aimed his vehicle at me on two occasions. They did say without witnesses it would make it hard to prosecute but they will look to see if there is any cctv. I also asked that when the question the perpetrator that he is likely to deny everything or say I struck out and that being the case they ask him to explain how his van was close enough that I could reach it and/or why he needed to retrace his route to the village.

Before anybody raises a query with the Master of the Rolls, I'm not clear what sort of a compensation case might be involved here. In particular, there's been no mention of any physical injury. In the scale of things, even a top-end bike being trashed isn't a big deal in terms of a payout. That may be behind the response from the solicitor already consulted.

As described, there's somebody with a very short fuse driving about in a van. Hopefully, the images posted on this thread are stills from footage of the entire episode. (I'm not suggesting that more should be attached while the criminal case is ongoing.)
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PS I presume from peetee's latest that the incident wasn't recorded

Jdsk wrote:It's precisely as worded in the cited Act.The civil court starts with the fact of the criminal conviction. After that it has complete "choice" to come to its own findings. And it may be deciding something rather different.

A hypothetical choice - unless there were extremely exceptional circumstances such as important new evidence, which would likely result in the civil action being stayed, any decision by the person hearing the civil case to give a verdict that was at odds with the criminal verdict would result in their being subject to disciplinary action by the head of the judiciary, and the decision itself would be overturned promptly on appeal.

I suspect that you understand rather more of this than the average punter.

The point that I'm trying to make is that if you're involved in civil proceedings and the other party has been convicted on a connected issue you shouldn't assume that you'll win because of that. The conviction will be a fact in evidence and is unlikely to be overpowered: we're not disagreeing about that. But the findings in the the civil court will not be automatically be in your favour solely because of the other party's conviction. (And a finding against you is nothing to do with "overturning" their criminal conviction.)

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote:I suspect that you understand rather more of this than the average punter.

The point that I'm trying to make is that if you're involved in civil proceedings and the other party has been convicted on a connected issue you shouldn't assume that you'll win because of that. The conviction will be a fact in evidence and is unlikely to be overpowered: we're not disagreeing about that. But the findings in the the civil court will not be automatically be in your favour solely because of the other party's conviction. (And a finding against you is nothing to do with "overturning" their criminal conviction.)

It's not a connected issue. We are discussing a single issue - the deliberate damage to peetee's bike - which was both a criminal offence and also gives rise to the potential for a civil action to recover the cost of the damage. In such a situation the civil court will not find for the defendant if they have been found by a criminal court to have committed the act. The finding will automatically be in the plaintiff's favour. A decision by the judge in the civil case that went against the criminal verdict and implied that the verdict in the criminal case was wrong, would be career ending for that judge, and the decision would be quashed on appeal.

As I said in my first post, there would probably be no need to make a civil claim in the event of a conviction for criminal damage, because the judge in the case would have the power to make a compensation order. The power to make compensation orders exists precisely because it saves going through the motions of holding a separate civil hearing where the outcome would be a foregone conclusion.

In straightforward cases, criminal courts have been able to award compo for quite a while for eg assault and criminal damage. AFAIK,the doesn't apply to driving offences so - if this were to get to court - I think a prosecution for criminal damage might be a better compo prospect than some form of bad driving.

slowster wrote:The finding will automatically be in the plaintiff's favour. A decision by the judge in the civil case that went against the criminal verdict and implied that the verdict in the criminal case was wrong, would be career ending for that judge, and the decision would be quashed on appeal..

What's your authority for that please?

(Not for the default assumption of fact from the conviction.)

Thanks

Jonathan

The finding will automatically be in the plaintiff's favour. A decision by the judge in the civil case that went against the criminal verdict and implied that the verdict in the criminal case was wrong, would be career ending for that judge, and the decision would be quashed on appeal.

The judge might find in favour but may award a small sum for damages and might even award costs to defendant if case considered trivial in relation to legal costs.Secondly I do not think the career of a civil judge could be influenced by the criminal division given two systems are kept separate.Also in criminal cases it is a higher burden of proof whereas civil is on balance of probabilities.