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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Driver fined £625 & given five points for attacking cyclist with car
A driver who left the scene after deliberately driving into a cyclist and knocking him off his bike in Richmond Park has been fined just £625 and given five penalty points.
Jon Weale, 29, from Kingston, Surrey was driving his Jaguar X-type on Sawyer’s Hill in the park on July 27 last year, when he drew alongside a cyclist, Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court heard.
According to Tom Ambrose in the Richmond & Twickenham Times, Weale’s passenger shouted abuse at the cyclist about who had right of way. Weale sounded his horn and the rider responded by swearing.
Weale then drove at the cyclist, knocked him off his bike, and drove away.
He pleaded not guilty to charges of driving without due care and attention and failing to stop.
The court fined Weale £100 for careless driving but did not endorse his licence. He was fined a further £250 and ordered to pay £250 costs and a victim surcharge of £25.
For the failing to stop offence he was given five penalty points.
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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The MP for Richmond Park is Zac Goldsmith, a campaigner on environmental issues, apparently! Given the Conservative's nervousness at the moment, I'd suggest it's a good time to demand Mr Goldsmith looks into this further and takes positive action. If you are a constituent, please visit https://www.writetothem.com/
Not surprisingly, Mr Goldsmith is pretty active on Twitter so bringing the case to his attention via that channel is an option everyone can undertake.
https://twitter.com/ZacGoldsmith
The reluctance of the CPS to level appriopriately serious charges has often been lamented on here, but given that this was dealt with at magistrates, who prosecutes? Is it still the _Crown_ Prosecution Service, or is that just for cases that go to a Crown Court?
I ask because there is surely a clearly inappropriate charge here - prosecuting someone on due care and attention for a deliberate malicious act is just not accurate?
I'm not a lawyer but as I understand it (from a similar case I was the victim in) cases like these go to the magistrate's court first and if they think it's too serious for them to hear, they send it to the Crown Court. Trouble with that is you've dragged all the witnesses out of work to hang around a court all day just to hear 5 minutes of the victim telling their side of the story and the case adjourned to Crown Court*.
Sometimes it seems more pragmatic to just dole out the harshest punishments available to magistrates.
* That's what happened in my case. Eventually he pleaded guilty to Careless Driving, got banned, fined, put on a curfew and given a suspended sentence. Everything short of custody basically.
Why wasn't he done for assault?
Just a few legal points.
Attempted murder requires an intention to kill. GBH requires serious bodily harm to caused. If there were no injuries, the highest level of charge would be common assault though technically an attempted GBH could be charged. However, it is difficult to prove that intent. Because someone deliberately knocks someone of their bike it doesn't necessary show an intention to cause serious injury or death. As we know from bitter experience, people including car drivers do not necessary think through the consequences of their actions and to prov such serious offences as GBH it would need to be shown beyond reasonable doubt what their intention was.
Points would be given on one offence only. Fail to stop carries 5-10. Due care carries 3-9.
Really? You honestly believe that someone with enough intelligence to feed themselves cannot understand that driving a tonne of metal into an unprotected human will hurt them?
Anyone who uses their vehicle a a means to scare or harm a vulnerable road user fully knows what they are doing. I had some guy do it to me the other year and if I hadn't have been quick on my brakes I was toast. I've also experienced it when out walking and crossing a side street when a motorist has accelerated their car at me to make me run out of the way. A GBH charge is what is needed in this instance.
Anyone who uses their vehicle a a means to scare or harm a vulnerable road user fully knows what they are doing. I had some guy do it to me the other year and if I hadn't have been quick on my brakes I was toast. I've also experienced it when out walking and crossing a side street when a motorist has accelerated their car at me to make me run out of the way. A GBH charge is what is needed in this instance.
Hold on not banned from driving for at least a year?
No enforced anger management classes of the driver ?
No prison sentence ?
Not even community service ?
If I deliberately attack someone with a knife on the pavement because they are walking too slowly in front of me, but don't manage to puncture them with the knife but they still get pushed the to ground. Would I get off as lightly. I think I should don't you. ....... or maybe not.
He has been given 5 penalty points for DELIBERATELY knocking someone off their bike with his car. Surely Deliberately driving into someone should be a ban ?
Can anybody explain why he wasn't banned ? I don't get it.
It's not even that good. He was given 5 points for failing to stop after an accident. He wasn't given any for knocking him off!
Because the CPS (see my post) only charged the driver with Careless Driving. The court can only sentence in line with that offence. The proper charge should be dangerous driving. You can get a ban for Careless at the extreme end and with loads of aggravating factors and harm. You should defintely be getting points. My guess is that the court viewed the swearing (cyclist at motorist) in a dim light and went easy on the driver.
It may also have been part of the reason why the CPS went for careless as it could look like a bit of six of one. I don't agree with that.
Genuine advice is don't swear or make rude gestures (even under provocation ) and get a helmet/bar cam.
Had this driver not driven off he probably would not have been charged. It would just have been one road users word against another as to who said what and did what.
That's the offence that the magistrates focused on.
Wrong but that's my guess on the CPS charge and magistrates view. ie six of one/ half a dozen of the other, aggressive cyclist ends up on their arse and agressive motorist drives off. Do him for driving off the rest is a murky mess to sort out wothout video or witnesses.
Wear a camera. No argument.
I wonder if this is the same pr*ck who was deliberately swerving into the path of cyclists attempting to overtake him?
This happened to me (along with others) in Richmond Park a couple of years ago. The driver was in a convertible Jag behind another car. He kept doing it until there were at least 20 of us behind him. He finally overtook the car in front of him and tore off, one of the cyclists gave chase. I really hope he caught up with him.
It's bad enough that this was only charged as DWDC in the first place, but the lack of endorsement for it - considering he pleaded not guilty - is utterly mind-boggling.
A complete clusterfuck from start to finish from those who are supposed to deliver 'justice'.
The sooner we revoke the special offences that apply only to those driving motor vehicles, the better.
Causing death by xxx driving should for every example be charged as manslaughter, unless intent can be proven, when the charge should be murder.
Using a car as a weapon should be charges as any other case of common assault - I wonder if this might be one worth pursuing, as the offender has not been charged with assault and it would appear to have all the required conditions to bring such a charge?
Worth remembering that those (few) cyclists who have killed pedestrians don't have these magic get-out options - they get charged with manslaughter (and also assault if they deliberately ride into someone)
If any case needs a review to uphold confidence in the Judiciary this is it.
Disgraceful. The judge/magistrates is/are incompetent and should be removed. Astonishing the driver didn't get points on their license for driving a Jag. Unbelievable.
A long ban followed by having to re-test surely?
Good job I don't live near Barnfield Ave, Kingston, or I'd be tempted to commit a crime late one night.
And certainly not near 78, with an X-type estate outside on Google street view.
https://www.facebook.com/jon.weale?fref=ts
http://www.jjw-personal-training.co.uk/about-me/
A personal trainer. To be avoided I would suggest
I don't now how to get a DOS attack working and I hope no one else reading this does either.
Hit them in the wallet it's the only thing people like this understand.
Huw are you sure you have the right man there we don't want this to get nasty !
He's gone to court and be found guilty and will have to pay his dues. Even if you think those dues aren't good enough, there is no need for cyber vigilantism.
Lets count backwards to 10 in are heads and take the higher road and not act like a lot of angry petrol heads do.
It's him
He makes his living from helping others to get fitter. Rather odd then that he harbours such vitriol for cyclists
Even if it is, an internet jihad is hardly going to make the cycling community look better.
Cyclists on a cycling forum complaining that a sentence is too lenient is an internet jihad? WTF?
Hardly jihad
Actions have consequences and if he's hit it in the pocket a little, then what's wrong with that?
His twitter and fb pages have been taken down which would suggest it's him, otherwise surely you'd leave them up with a denial ?
Hopefully it'll cost him some clients and some more cash, knob
I checked as soon as I saw this and the FB link still works.
This is what I get:
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Its interesting that "jihad" has such negative connotations in the West, whilst the Christian equivalent, "crusade" is much more positive.
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