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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Van driver who laughed as he drove at cyclists jailed for six months
A van driver who laughed as he deliberately drove at a group of cyclists has been jailed for six months.
According to a report from the Daily Post, Joel Reece Morris drove his white Transit van on the wrong side of the road at the 20-rider group “for fun”, swerving back to his side of the road moments before a collision.
Many of the riders fell off their bikes as the group stopped, believing they were going to be hit.
Morris, 25, of Connah’s Quay, Flintshire, North Wales was jailed for six months. He was also banned from driving for six months and will have to take an extended driving test before being allowed to drive again.
The incident happened at 10.45am on Sunday November 17, 2013. The cyclists from Ellesmere Port were riding two abreast along the B5125 at Northop Hall, Flintshire.
Witnesses described Morris laughing as he drove at the group.
Afterwards he stopped and as riders approached him to get his registration number he reversed with his tyres screeching as his passenger gave them a V sign.
Morris had previously claimed he had swerved to avoid something in the road, and had not deliberately driven at the riders, but at Mold Crown Court on Wednesday he accepted the prosecution case in full.
David Mainstone, prosecuting, said that a female cyclist at the head of the group swerved to the left and told how she would have been hit if she had fallen to the right.
Morris had two previous convictions for drink driving and leaving the scene of an accident.
Jayne La Grua, mitigating, said Morris appreciated the seriousness of what he had done. He had sought the help of a driving instructor with his impulsive actions behind the wheel.
He was a cockler and the loss of his driving licence meant the loss of his job. “This was a phenomenally stupid and dangerous thing to do,” she said.
Judge Niclas Parry told Morris: “This was an inexplicable piece of dangerous driving. For some reason, known only to you, you decided to goad and, more seriously, intimidate a group of cyclists doing no more than what has become a very common, enjoyable and worthwhile past time of riding in a group on a Sunday morning.
“For fun, you deliberately drove at them to alarm them and to make them lose control. You drove intentionally at that group.”
Only the alertness of the cyclists prevented any major injuries, said the judge. The evasive action riders were forced to take resulted in some of them colliding with each other, with some falling off and sustaining minor injuries and damage to their bikes.
The judge mentioned recent incidents in which cyclists had been seriously injured or killed and said: “There is a duty on every motorist to respect the safety of cyclists.”
Follow-up: Ride leader Terry Hughes has given a detailed account of what happened.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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69 comments
I am of the opinion that this was a violent hate crime. Being racist or homophobic in public these days can easily land you in the dock so all the bigots who were previously into gay bashing have had to go looking for another minority to persecute. Again the CPS have used the wrong charge. Violent disorder should have been what he was charged with and it should also be what he was convicted of, in future he can tell employers that he was found guilty of a driving offence which sounds a hell of a lot better than telling the truth, which is that he had a good go at putting a large group of people in fear of their life simply because he thinks they are different from him. If these incidents continue we are going to see the first case of a driver getting dragged out of a car and worked over with a d-lock by a bunch of commuters as the current negative press in right wing media is making idiots think that they can terrorize or even kill cyclists with the peer approval of most of society - people will only live in fear for so long before they start fighting back.
Two previous and he's still being given the chance to re-do his license.....
#facepalm.
It's a sad comment on the judicial system that people who have multiple convictions for serious driving offences are ever allowed to drive again.
Need to drive for your job? Don't commit serious offences.
It *should* be that simple
Let's hope that he doesn't try and learn how to brush his teeth with a shotgun
Arsehole!
Oh, I don't know, let's hope he does, then he can blow his brain cell out...
Well, there'd be no witnesses if he did, so his story of having to swerve to avoid something couldn't be argued against...so yes, basically!
Another mentalist in charge of a vehicle.
The eejit should have got 6 years NOT 6 months. The sentence is a joke. If he'd hit and killed several cyclists would he have have got life as it would have been murder? Dream on, of course he wouldn't.
If you want to kill some one in this country you'll only get a slap on the wrists / get off, if you do it in a car, van, lorry, etc.
I wonder how long he will be out before he gets a conviction for driving without insurance/whilst disqualified... based on his history of ignoring road rules he should never be allowed to drive again. But thankfully a Judge has seen fit to punsh for the crime. Hopefully this is the start of something
Six months off the road? What a joke. Does anyone feel safe with this guy on the road? What do you have to do to get a lifetime driving ban?
All driving bans start on release from custody. Dangerous driving is supposed to be a minimum 12 month ban so not sure how he got away with 6. Still a result that he got jail time.
If he'd have said he was blinded by the sun and mown the lot of them down he'd probably be at home now
Finally a sentence that is appropriate. However, that puts a very different light at other sentences that had human death involved and got suspended. Also, after a driving record like that, there should be no way back behind a steering wheel of any sort of motorized transport, period!
Overall, finally, a step into the right direction!
Six month's *might* have been fair. But with previous convictions?
It's ludicrous to suppose this man could ever be safe. When he kills, the judge who let him drive again should be held liable.
Something similar happened to me on last Sunday's 56miler. I was less than a mile from home, descending a road in which I can reach speed of 30+, has multiple parked cars but is wide enough for two way traffic. On this day, I was going slower as I'd had an issue with my rear brake earlier in the ride and as a precaution decided that slower was better just in case I had to brake suddenly. (I am, after all, a defensive rider/driver.) And what happens, a young woman who was ascending the hill in her car, looks straight at me and I'm looking at her, and she suddenly crosses the white line without any indication of her action, in order to park on the opposite side of the road! She clearly can see and judge my speed and you can bet, if I had been a car, she wouldn't have made that maneuver. Of course, I think she's coming straight at me, I have to slam me anchors down (thank goodness my on the go brake adjustment I performed earlier worked) my rear wheel slides out and up (I'm so glad I wasn't going normal 30mph here). I'm screaming all kinds of choice curse words that I can think of and I seriously contemplate fully unclipping and walking a ways up the hill to her car so I can ask her, "What the "f*ck?" But, I'm very rightly angry and experiencing some severe back spasms so decide to go home. When I arrived, my poor patient husband got an earful of what happened. I seriously considered changing my shoes and jumping in my car to go see if the motorist was still parked up, but I'm the one who probably would get in trouble with the police as I have no evidence.
The road.cc story is a positive result and gives me hope that there is still some justice left in the world. The last remark by the judge, for me, was spot on: “There is a duty on every motorist to respect the safety of cyclists.”
I'd bet she's some kind of sociopath, as is the van driver in the article.
You didn't register as a person with her.
Just my pop psych opinion.
6 month ban.... While he's in prison and can't drive anyway. Well done.
clearly thought Top Gear is a documentary series on advanced driving techniques.
to be fair, its more than drivers have got that have killed cyclist
its not right, but better than some cases recently
does his driving ban start on the day of release? If not then it's a joke...
"He was a cockler and the loss of his driving licence meant the loss of his job"
so now he's just a cock then ...
6 months driving ban for dangerous driving - really he should be banned for 6 years - this wasn't inattention, this was a deliberate act of intimidation which could've led to the death of the cyclists.
I'd bet it wasn't the first time he's done it either.
sorry, I am confused, driving at a group and swerving at the last minute, gets you a 6month sentence, but driving over the top of a cyclist gets you a suspended 6 month sentence.
....
er
....
Sorry, is this saying that if you intend to punish cyclists, you should kill them????????????????????
Good! More of this please.
Let's hope he isn't raped morning noon and night every single day he's inside, hey?
This is a country that hates cyclists, so he'll be given hi-5s and his choice of pretty boys.
A k**b head driver actually going to see the inside of a prison cell for a change. More of this is needed to act as a deterrent.
You're assuming he be a good boy in future and try to get insurance, analysis would suggest he's probably the sort of brainless moron that wouldn't bother with it.
So he will be banned from driving during the six months he is in prison? That's going to hit hard then....
Did I not read somewhere (quite possibly on here) that that used to be how it worked (idiotic though it is) but common-sense finally kicked in and now it starts after release? Maybe I imagined that?
Hopefully not but, either way, just six months off the road for this incident as well as other serious offences? Pathetic, and falls far short of being effective.
As for his laughhable claim of "seeking help" I'd suggest that he needs a psychiatrist, not a driving instructor (some of whom don't even know how to drive properly around cyclists themselves).
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