Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

slowster
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Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by slowster »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-63746267

I thought that in the absence of a specific offence of causing death by careless cycling, the most appropriate charge would likely be causing bodily harm by wanton driving under The Offences Against the Person Act. However, in this case the CPS appear to have prosecuted only for what is effectively careless cycling. As a result the penalty was limited to a fine, with no prison sentence (suspended or otherwise).

The Daily Mail link below gives two further bits of information: the cyclist suffered unspecified 'significant life-changing injuries', and the motorcyclist was speeding (40mph in 30 mph zone). Apparently the latter was not a permissible defence against the charge (but I wonder if it would have been a permissible defence against the charge of causing bodily injury by wanton driving, which might explain the decision to prosecute the lesser offence).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/crime/ ... biker.html
pwa
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by pwa »

It sounds like the defendant did make a mistake and that that mistake was partly to blame for the accident. Maybe if the other party had lived, he too would have had to face a charge relating to a bit of excess speed. So on the whole, a fine for contributing to the death of another road user doesn't seem excessive.

I also note the time of day of the incident, which was before dawn. That can't have helped. I know there would have been street lighting and vehicle lights, but that is never as revealing to the eyes as daylight.

It is a messy business, with only losers.
thirdcrank
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by thirdcrank »

For anybody who doesn't like the Daily Mail here's a link to a local rag the Daily Echo which seems to have had a traditional court reporter at the proceedings.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/ ... tal-crash/
Pete Owens
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by Pete Owens »

I'm not one to automatically take the side of a cyclist in cases such as this, but I can't see how the excessive speed of the motor cyclist is not a defence in this case.

The key issue is judging whether there was sufficient time to cross the junction before a motor cyclist visible in the distance arrived. The speed of the motorcyclist is critical in this. The cyclist would not have infringed the priority of a law abiding motor cyclist who would have arrived at the junction several seconds later had they been complying with the speed limit.
richardfm
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by richardfm »

Pete Owens wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 9:53pm I'm not one to automatically take the side of a cyclist in cases such as this, but I can't see how the excessive speed of the motor cyclist is not a defence in this case.

The key issue is judging whether there was sufficient time to cross the junction before a motor cyclist visible in the distance arrived. The speed of the motorcyclist is critical in this. The cyclist would not have infringed the priority of a law abiding motor cyclist who would have arrived at the junction several seconds later had they been complying with the speed limit.
Because the cyclist should have seen him coming and not made the manoeuvre.
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cycle tramp
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by cycle tramp »

Without recourse to Google Street View it sounds as if from the other news report that the cyclist was waiting at a junction which was traffic light controlled and crossed the on coming stream of traffic.
It could be that the cyclist thought that the green light meant that they could continue, and that the on coming traffic would be stopped by a red light as apposed to being aware that the on coming traffic would not be stopped and would still have right of way.
If I'm right then it wouldn't have been the first collision having seen two cars collide at a similar junction in London.
Last edited by cycle tramp on 26 Nov 2022, 10:49pm, edited 1 time in total.
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slowster
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by slowster »

I wonder what the charge and sentence might have been if the events leading up to the collision had been been exactly the same, but the outcome had been reversed, i.e. the cyclist had been killed and the motorcyclist had suffered the life-changing injuries.

In that situation would the motorcyclist have been prosecuted for speeding, but not prosecuted for causing death by careless driving, because the contributory action of the cyclist would be a permissible defence and would (likely) cause a prosecution for causing death by careless driving to fail?
Nearholmer
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by Nearholmer »

I would defy anybody to distinguish between a motorbike travelling at 30mph and one travelling at 40mph, or indeed a wide range of other speeds, in that circumstance, a near head-on view of an approaching light, so the careful thing to do, which is what the law requires, having spotted an approaching headlight, would be to wait until it passed, then cross the lane. He may not have spotted the light at all, of course, he may have simply “looked past it”, or misinterpreted the green light and not checked.

To me it feels very “there but for the grace of God go I” when thinking about both the cyclist and the motorcyclist. I’ve made misjudgements when cycling, and had people blunder into my path when motorcycling and when cycling, recently a fellow cyclist shot out in front of me.

My brother permanently lost most of the function in his right arm as a result of a child on a bike riding out in front of him from between parked cars as he was pootling along on his motorbike; he “laid the bike down” at <30mph to avoid hitting the child, smashing his arm to bits in the process. That went to some sort of court to apportion blame for insurance/compensation purposes, and 90% of blame was apportioned to the child, 10% to my brother on the basis that he should have been travelling even slower than he was given that he was passing a line of parked cars and someone popping out was a foreseeable risk. My bro was then awarded 90% of assessed loss of future earnings, paid by the child’s parents’ home insurance company.
pwa
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by pwa »

Nearholmer wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 10:58pm I would defy anybody to distinguish between a motorbike travelling at 30mph and one travelling at 40mph, or indeed a wide range of other speeds, in that circumstance, a near head-on view of an approaching light, so the careful thing to do, which is what the law requires, having spotted an approaching headlight, would be to wait until it passed, then cross the lane. He may not have spotted the light at all, of course, he may have simply “looked past it”, or misinterpreted the green light and not checked.

To me it feels very “there but for the grace of God go I” when thinking about both the cyclist and the motorcyclist. I’ve made misjudgements when cycling, and had people blunder into my path when motorcycling and when cycling, recently a fellow cyclist shot out in front of me.

My brother permanently lost most of the function in his right arm as a result of a child on a bike riding out in front of him from between parked cars as he was pootling along on his motorbike; he “laid the bike down” at <30mph to avoid hitting the child, smashing his arm to bits in the process. That went to some sort of court to apportion blame for insurance/compensation purposes, and 90% of blame was apportioned to the child, 10% to my brother on the basis that he should have been travelling even slower than he was given that he was passing a line of parked cars and someone popping out was a foreseeable risk. My bro was then awarded 90% of assessed loss of future earnings, paid by the child’s parents’ home insurance company.
Well done to your brother for not hitting the child. I'm sorry about his disability, but at least he got it in a good cause. I once laid down my bicycle to avoid cycling over a fallen cyclist on ice, knowing I couldn't brake or steer away on the ice, and it takes an effort of will to do it even on a bicycle.
thirdcrank
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by thirdcrank »

This was the prosecution of the cyclist for a criminal offence under s 29 Road Traffic Act 1988 - careless/inconsiderate cycling

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/29

ie It wan't a civil case (compo) nor was it a prosecution of the deceased motorcyclist.

Once upon a time, around here at least, a driver turning across the path of another leading to a crash led to an almost inevitable prosecution for "due care" usually resulting in conviction. But that stopped. Various things led to the change - many discussed on here before - but an underlying theme was that momentary inattention was insufficient for a prosecution in the absence of evidence of other factors such as being distracted by faffing with a phone.

The prosecution in this case has benefited from evidence provided by footage from front and rear cameras on a vehicle travelling just in front of the cyclist and it sounds as though this gave a decent view of events.

There's no mention of anybody representing the defendant (the cyclist.) A big risk with unrepresented defendants is that they don't appreciate the importance of challenging the prosecution evidence. It's often a case of sitting through the prosecution then taking the line "That's all very well, but now listen to me." The reports may be incomplete but the defence seems to have largely consisted of the cyclist's assertion that he rode carefully.

One thing I find strange is the district judge's comment that the rider did not stop before the fatal manoeuvre. While stopping may often be necessary, I cannot think of anything which makes it compulsory.

While the speed of the motorcyclist was a factor, I don't think it gives a defendant a "Get out of jail free" card. It depends on the circumstances and the evidence was that the motorcyclist "there to be seen" for quite some time. The implication (and nothing more) seems to have been that the cyclist nipped round after the lorry.

Bearing in mind that this crash happened almost a year ago, it doesn't seem to have attracted the attention of campaigners for a change in the law eg causing death by dangerous/careless cycling. Nor does there seem to have been any "Justice for XXX" campaign

The reports contain nothing about how the penalty was calculated. The fine of £2,500 is the maximum for this summary offence and that should be reserved for the very worst case. Killing somebody is obviously an aggravating factor, but I'd have liked to have seen the judge's working out.

Re furious cycling, I presume that charge was not supported by the evidence.
Pebble
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by Pebble »

I wonder if there would have been a prosecution if the cyclist had been a car. 40mph in a 30 (esp in the poor light just before dawn) is pretty excessive.
slowster
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by slowster »

Both the cyclist and motorcyclist committed common offences (careless cycling and speeding respectively). I suspect that made a successful prosecution for causing bodily injury by wanton and furious riding very unlikely. If instead the cyclist had been killed, I think that it would have similarly made a successful prosecution of the motorcyclist for causing death by careless driving unlikely.

One of the requirements for the offence of unlawful act manslaughter is that the prosecution must establish that the unlawful act was a cause of the death without an intervening act to break the chain of causation. I would expect broadly the same legal rule to apply for analogous offences, and although contributory negligence is a civil law concept, the fact that both parties bore a significant degree of responsibility for the collision (in the form of similarly unlawful acts) prevented a clear chain of causation by just one party being demonstrable.
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Sum
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by Sum »

thirdcrank wrote: 27 Nov 2022, 9:35am One thing I find strange is the district judge's comment that the rider did not stop before the fatal manoeuvre. While stopping may often be necessary, I cannot think of anything which makes it compulsory.
The Judge's comment did seem a little strange. I did wonder if that was the main basis on which the Judge decided the cyclist didn't check the way was clear before proceeding across the junction i.e. the cyclist didn't stop therefore the cyclist didn't check:-
https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/23147462.cyclist-found-guilty-riding-bike-carelessly-fatal-crash/ wrote:District Judge Michael Snow found the defendant guilty of the single charge following a trial on November 24.
“When he (the defendant) gets to the junction what is quite clear having viewed the recordings is he doesn’t stop,” Judge Snow said.
“He doesn’t obviously check. He just cycles straight on and at the point he makes that turn Callum is in the junction itself.”
The judge added: “He did not check I am afraid. He just continued straight on.”
Later on in the article, the prosecution also refers to the cyclist "not pausing" although this seems to be a reference to the cyclist possibly seeing the motorcyclist and "misjudging his (the cyclist's) ability to make that turn".

Obviously there's a danger here of reading too much into the news article.
thirdcrank
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by thirdcrank »

Sum wrote: 27 Nov 2022, 11:08am
thirdcrank wrote: 27 Nov 2022, 9:35am One thing I find strange is the district judge's comment that the rider did not stop before the fatal manoeuvre. While stopping may often be necessary, I cannot think of anything which makes it compulsory.
The Judge's comment did seem a little strange. I did wonder if that was the main basis on which the Judge decided the cyclist didn't check the way was clear before proceeding across the junction i.e. the cyclist didn't stop therefore the cyclist didn't check:-
https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/23147462.cyclist-found-guilty-riding-bike-carelessly-fatal-crash/ wrote:District Judge Michael Snow found the defendant guilty of the single charge following a trial on November 24.
“When he (the defendant) gets to the junction what is quite clear having viewed the recordings is he doesn’t stop,” Judge Snow said.
“He doesn’t obviously check. He just cycles straight on and at the point he makes that turn Callum is in the junction itself.”
The judge added: “He did not check I am afraid. He just continued straight on.”
Later on in the article, the prosecution also refers to the cyclist "not pausing" although this seems to be a reference to the cyclist possibly seeing the motorcyclist and "misjudging his (the cyclist's) ability to make that turn".

Obviously there's a danger here of reading too much into the news article.
In case anybody still reading is wondering, a defendant should only be convicted on the admissible evidence and in accordance with the law. Part of the rationale for the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service was that it would replace unqualified lay prosecutors - generally police officers - with impartial lawyers. (As an aside, the last prosecuting learned friend I chatted with during a break in proceedings explained that she had been called in at short notice as an "agent." Her day job was as a conveyencer with Yorkhire Water or possibly the RWA wich preceded it.)

Anyway, a prosecutor should have a good knowledge of the relevant law, especially the law forming the basis of their case. If they stray, then the defence advocate should be on their feet, although that's more likely if the defence thinks there's a "loophole" when a clued-up prosecutor has the answer ready.

District judges are qualified lawyers: what used to be stipendiary magistrates AKA stipes, and the rationale behind their increasing numbers is that as qualified lawyers, they know what they are doing. It's pretty fundamental that they make decisions on the evidence and in accordance with the law.

If a judge at any level looks to be getting something wrong, then AFAIK it's the duty of the prosecutor to put them right. I've done it with a bench of lay magistrates "It's no part of my case that ...." and the stipes I've known were so scrupulous, it's hard to imagine them going wrong on something so fundamental. In the Crown Court, I've seen a recorder summing up for the wrong offence under the Theft Act and the prosecutor was on his feet PDQ.

In one sense, if a defendant decides to "go it alone" that's their lookout, but it does place an even greater duty on the lawyers to get it right
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Re: Cyclist who caused death of motorcyclist found guilty of riding without due consideration

Post by awavey »

richardfm wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 10:30pm
Pete Owens wrote: 26 Nov 2022, 9:53pm I'm not one to automatically take the side of a cyclist in cases such as this, but I can't see how the excessive speed of the motor cyclist is not a defence in this case.

The key issue is judging whether there was sufficient time to cross the junction before a motor cyclist visible in the distance arrived. The speed of the motorcyclist is critical in this. The cyclist would not have infringed the priority of a law abiding motor cyclist who would have arrived at the junction several seconds later had they been complying with the speed limit.
Because the cyclist should have seen him coming and not made the manoeuvre.
details on this case are sparse so its very hard I think to judge, but the cyclist hasnt said in any of the coverage Ive seen, that they didnt see the motorcyclist coming, simply they believed they had enough time to safely make their turn.

So that to me would make the amount of time they had rather crucial point to the case and absolutely would be calculated on their own speed at clearing the crossing and the expected legal speed of any approaching vehicle. Thats just a calculation we all automatically make in this situation. Theres something coming do I think Ive got enough time to clear the crossing, yes, go for it, no then stop & wait.

So I dont understand why the prosecution stated that the excess speed couldnt be used by the defence, unless the video evidence shows something that we are missing, like actually how near the motorbike and the cyclist were when the turn was made.
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