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Jake Gilmore (image courtesy Avon and Somerset Police:Gilmore family)Bath hit-and-run driver sentenced to three years for death of Jake Gilmore
The driver who killed Bath cyclist Jake Gilmore in November 2013 was today sentenced to three years in jail at Bristol Crown Court.
Raymond Isherwood, 53, of Bennett Street, Bath had previously pled guilty to causing death by dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of an accident, perverting the course of justice, failure to surrender to police bail, and cultivation of cannabis.
Jake Gilmore was riding home from working at the Lamb and Lion pub in central Bath when Isherwood hit him with Volkswagon Golf on Midland Bridge Road at around 9.30pm on Saturday, November 16.
According to the Bath Chronicle, prosecutor Rupert Lowe told the court: “Mr Gilmore was knocked from his bicycle, landed on his bonnet, windscreen and roof of the car before falling to the road behind and when the accident happened there was nobody in the street either on foot or in a car and the area was not covered by CCTV.
Ghost bike for Jake Gilmore on Midland Bridge Road
“Mr Isherwood knew he had hit somebody but failed to stop. He told police later he didn’t even break or take his foot from the accelerator.”
Isherwood drove to nearby Royal Victoria Park and covered the car with a plastic sheet to conceal its smashed windscreen and dented body, then walked to his flat.
"He could hear the sirens in the distance which he knew must relate to the accident which he had just caused," Lowe said.
Isherwood's car was found by police at 9.30pm the following day, and linked to the crash by a piece of the car's grill that was found at the scene.
Officers went to Isherwood's flat and had to force entry in order to arrest him. They also discovered 46 cannabis plants.
When interviewed by police, he said he had been sober at the time of the crash and had not smoked any cannabis.
He said he hoped he had hit a dog and had been distracted by trying to move a CD from his laptop to his car CD player.
But the prosecution said this could not be correct as examination of the laptop had failed to uncover any fragments of broken glass from the smashed windscreen.
Remorse
Charles Row, mitigating, said Isherwood had entered a guilty plea as soon as possible.
He said: “The remorse Mr Isherwood feels is complete and genuine.
“Some people do the right thing straight away - don’t we like to think we all would. He wasn’t able to face up to what he did on that November night.”
Row said his client had "panicked" after the collision and had not been able to face up to what he had done.
He read a letter from Isherwood, which said: "I am so desperately sorry for the immense pain and loss that I have caused them and offer the family my sincere regret."
He said that his client had problems sleeping and had considered taking his own life since the incident.
Dreadful driving
Handing Isherwood a three-year jail sentence, Judge Michael Roach said: "This was a dreadful piece of driving."
"It was made the worse by your failure to slow down or stop in the immediate aftermath of the collision.
"You left the scene with no thought for the person you had just struck.
"You must have known that he was very likely to have been seriously injured, not least by the damage caused to your car.
"You thought only of yourself and you sought to hide what you had done.
"Jake Gilmore was 19-years-old, he was in the prime of his life.
"He was a much loved son and brother.
"The impact of his loss on his family and friends is profound.
"Their suffering will have been made worse by the callous way you left the scene.
"Common humanity and common decency should have made you stop after this collision but you drove on regardless."
Sentencing
The starting point for a Level 3 offence of causing death by dangerous driving, where the driving involved carried a significant risk of danger, is three years custody. Isherwood's failure to remain at the scene will have been an aggravating factor, bringing the sentence to four years. This was reduced by a third because iof his early guilty plea.
A further four months was added to the sentence for the possession of cannabis plants, to be served consecutively.
Isherwood was also sentenced to 20 months for perverting the course of justice, two months for failing to stop after an accident and three months for failing to answer bail, but these are to run concurrently.
Family statement
In a statement released by the police after the sentence was handed down, Jake's family said: "As we said in our impact statement, there can be no doubt; the loss of our eldest son Jake, so suddenly and pointlessly has been the worst thing that could possible happen to us. His loss has inflicted emotional wounds from which we do not believe we will ever recover. The space he has left can never be filled.
"Jake was less than 2 months short of his 20th birthday. He had left home only 3 months before he was killed. We had tried to teach him what life had to offer, and equipped him to take advantage of it. He was still young enough to perceive life as a great adventure, and we were looking forward to sharing it with him.
"We were advised that the sentence given to the driver is unlikely to reflect the enormous loss we now have to try and live with, but it is a relief that this process has now been brought to a conclusion.
"We would like to thank the family and friends who have supported us, and who continue to do so. We would like to extend this to our family liaison officers, who have guided us through this, and the investigating team who have pursued this case.
"Jake was not the only cyclist to die on Britain’s roads last year, and this year’s total is creeping up at the same rate as all other years. It is ghastly for us to know that there are families all over the country waking up to the same never-ending torture that we have to endure, every day. So, as a family that cycles, we would like to take this moment to urge all road users to take more care, to pay attention, to slow down, to think."
British Cycling reaction
Martin Key, campaigns manager at British Cycling, said: "It is clear that the current justice system delivers results which send the wrong message about the right for people to ride safely on Britain's roads.
“This tragic case demonstrates yet again that the consequences of using electronic equipment or other distractions while driving are not sufficient to deliver real justice for victims and their families.
“The Government is undertaking a review of how the system operates for vulnerable road users and the need for urgent and effective action is crucial.”
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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24 comments
My main concern is that it was at least 24 hours later that he was arrested. So stoned and/or drunk while he was driving, it has all left his system. Shows remorse, what a joke, he brief will tell him what predetermined statements to make to reduce his sentence. I love cycling and fear for my kids when we ride.
Spot on analysis John.
Spot on analysis John.
The Road CC report is also pretty much a copy paste of how this incident is reported elswhere with the ommision of the line "Jake was not wearing a helmet" .
I cant help wonder if this fact contributed to the judges lenient sentance.
If so I think the helmet evangelists should really consider what they say and avoid fuelling this kind of victim blaming as it clearly would have made NO difference to the outcome.
RIP Jake.
He deliberately choose to leave the scene, I am keeping it real on this occasion its the law thats in a different world.
Re-Murder and causing death by dangerous driving.
Those in the business of law making may have developed terms for circumstances seperated by fine nuance. Great Im sure you can earn a nice living from that.
That doesnt make them right though, this is one person taking the life of another without facing any real punishment.
There is a distiction and it's not a fine one. Murder is deliberately killing someone. The objective of your actions being that they end up dead.
Driving dangerously may well risk that someone is killed or injured but it is not the intent.
These are different things. It's not a fine distinction. It may appeal to a certain mindset to argue that the result is the same ie someone ends up dead. But someone ends up dead sometimes when surgeons operate on difficult cases or when the police shoot armed robbers. These aren't murder either.
A poor sentence 4 years. But keep it real please.
For Fucks sake. You get a bigger punishment for downloading pirate music. Utter, utter gobshite. The way he acted was terrible, this man is scum. 10 years minimum.
Many years ago, when we hanged people not just for murder but for a whole variety of nastiness, one of the arguments for only hanging for murder was to stop scumbags realising that if they were getting the rope anyway, they might as well risk killing all the witnesses in the hope of evading justice and not being any worse off if caught anyway.
A century later we have concurrent sentences. Why bother stopping at one burglary when sentences for 10 are served concurrently.
Why bother stopping after mowing someone down when driving off, lying when questioned and procuring false alibis gets you no more prison time.
Considering that the last two NAO reports into crime have said that between 30k and 50k people commit HALF of all reported crime, you'd think the objective would be to have them permanently locked up (I'd prefer in a Siberian labour camp, other options are available). With our wonderful sentencing, the NAO also reported that only 25% of those prolific scumbags are in prison at any moment. I conclude the objective is to terrorise the basically law-biding majority, thus justifying ever-increasing oppressive laws, increased public spending and thus dependent employees, and increased profits for insurers, security firms and shiny-thing manufacturers.
End of rant.
My heart felt sympathy goes out to his family. At a time of immense pain and loss they have shown immense restraint and dignity, especially in appealing for greater care on the roads so that others do not endure the same suffering.
As for the sentencing of Isherwood, where is the deterrence to others who might think about leaving the scene of a collision thus sentencing someone to death ? Who knows, Jake might have lived if immediate medical attention had been called for. Isherwood went to every length to conceal his crime and abandoned Jake to his fate. The application of a discount to his tarrif for a guilty plea is an insult. In effect, this sentence has just sent out the message that if you hit, run, kill and try to conceal, your downside is 18 months incarceration. That, in my simple opinion is not justice.
That is a shockingly small amount of time for killing someone, whether it was accidental or not (some of you commenting need to learn the difference between murder and death by dangerous driving by the way- it's embarrassing!!). Reduced sentence for early plea?! If the police hadn't found his car and then him, would he still have entered an early plea? I doubt it!
From my Facebook feed.
https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-low-crown-court-sentence
Not sure this case could be considered for review, though it would be nice to think it would.
Can you do this preserving the anonymity?
I'd like to put it forward but given the profile of the offender I'd be worried about repercussions or else?
I'm a cyclist and taxi driver in Bath, and this 'incident' makes me embarrassed to live and work on this town's streets!
And what's with all this guy's sentences running concurrently?? If I park illegally on 20 occasions; get parking tickets for each one; and then pay them concurrently - i.e. just one payment - that will be cheaper than using council car parks! Bargain, think that's what I'll do from now on - as UK courts say it's okay!!!
Appalling sentence again. Should have been 14 years and banned for life. The problem with sentencing is offenders need to serve the full term of imprisonement. You get out *on time* for things like good behaviour. Not get 4 years then serve less than 2. Its a fucking insult to every single victim and their family/friends.
This guy was probably pissed and stoned on his home grown weed when he killed Jake. The asshole who took his life has probably never worked and been on benefits all his adult life. How do you maintain 46 weed plants in a full time job? He lied in interview. Remorse - my arse. He contributes nothing to society but being a crim and living off the state. Civilised Society? Only when scum like this can't be born.
I agree it was an apalling sentence especially given the aggravating factors. But can I once again point out that 14 years is the maximum sentrence possible ie for the most aggravated case (including all aggravating factors and no mitigating factors) of causing death by dangerous driving. That would include not pleading, guilty, not even expressing remorse however half heartedly, being drunk or on drugs, disqualified, fleeing the scene and trying to blame the victim.
Lifetime bans are not on the books.
This is a light sentence so I can only assume that an expression or remorse was given undue weights and and theb attempt to flee justice was was underscored. I don't know why that was but judges don't make up these sentences.
It looks to me like he should have had the official starting point of 8 years on this charge. He expressed remorse (a mitigating factor) but I would have reagrded that as pro forma since he fled the scene and the sentence would have remained 8. Aggravating factors were a plenty. Fleeing the scene being the primary. The sentence therefore should have been around 10. If he pleaded guilty before a court date is set then that provides 1/3 discount. So the correct sentence (in my opinion should have been more like six and a half.
So It's a low sentence. But please don't think the judge can just hand down 14 years and a lifetime ban. That would merely result in the sentence being overturned as it would be outwith the guidelines.
It's time this nonsense of concurrent sentences was stopped. It's utter bullshit.
P.S. Brake, not break.
The fucker should have got 10 years with no remission or parole and driving license permanently revoked.
It's not really four years for killing the cyclist as time was cut for pleading guilty early and his other offences were added onto the sentence.
In total ONLY 4 years for killing an innocent person, leaving the scene of a crime, perverting the course of justice and cultivating illegal drugs, and when he gets out it at most 18 months time he'll be free to do it all again as he appears to have retained his licence to kill.
What a joke
18 months rent free accomadation for murder, nice.
Really? Thats a complete lie. If he had done the right thing straight away he'd have stopped, went to his aid and called the emergency services.
If you hadn't selectively quoted, you would see that the follow-on was pretty much to that effect anyway.
I agree that 4 years is sick for taking someone's life. But I doubt he did it deliberately (the collision, that is, all else may be deliberate or acting out of panic).
Then when the Police came round to his house they would find the 46 pot plants he was growing.
3 years???