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news
A55, near Valley (via Google Maps)Hit-and-run driver who left cyclist “for dead” has prison sentence overturned
A motorist who left a 51-year-old former army major “for dead on the side of the road” has had a 12-week prison sentence overturned on appeal.
61-year-old William Jones, from Burton, Staffordshire, has instead been given a suspended sentence and was banned from driving for a year after leaving Cathal O’Reilly critically ill with a broken back, protruding leg bone and other serious injuries in a hit and run incident in September 2021.
According to Staffordshire Live, Jones, who submitted a positive breath test in the hours after the collision (though blood analysis put him below the legal alcohol limit), must also undertake 200 hours unpaid work and attend 20 rehabilitation days.
O’Reilly, a former major in the Irish Guards who later worked as a business consultant, was cycling on the A55 near the village of Valley, Anglesey, when he was struck by Jones on 19 September last year. The 51-year-old was riding to Holyhead from his home in London, in order to catch a ferry to Dublin to visit his parents, a 32-hour trip he’d undertaken previously.
In a victim impact statement, O’Reilly said that after being struck by Jones, he had been “left for dead on the side of the road”. He was taken to hospital in Bangor before being transferred to the Royal Stoke University Hospital’s major trauma centre, where he underwent 22 hours of surgery in two days, and remained in a critical condition for five days.
He suffered a broken back, protruding leg bone, and required a skin graft, along with multiple other injuries. O’Reilly’s DNA was also found on flesh embedded in the damaged car belonging to Jones, who failed to stop at the scene.
Police later found Jones’ car at a Premier Inn in Holyhead. The 61-year-old, who was also preparing to board a ferry to Dublin, was breathalysed by police and returned a positive test, though later blood analysis showed that he was below the legal alcohol limit.
Branding Jones a “despicable coward” for leaving him with devastating injuries, O’Reilly said that following the incident, “My life has changed beyond recognition. I am lucky to be alive”.
Jones admitted to careless driving, failing to stop after the incident, failing to report it, and driving an uninsured car.
He stated in court that when he struck O’Reilly, he assumed he had hit a bollard, a claim which a Caernarfon Crown Court judge said “beggars belief”.
The 61-year-old was originally ordered to serve a 12-week prison sentence. But after appealing that verdict on the grounds, according to Jones’ barrister, that there had been a “conflation of penalties” by the original court, the jail term was suspended for one year. He was also banned from driving for 12 months.
Despite telling the court that “it would be inhuman not to have a huge sense of humility and sympathy for the victim in this case”, Jones’ barrister Simon Killeen claimed that the motorist was of good character, had serious health concerns, and was well under the drink-drive limit according to later calculations, before pointing out that instances of careless driving did not carry a prison term.
Recorder Neill Owen-Casey allowed the appeal, noting that the original sentence appeared to have been imposed based on the gravity of O’Reilly’s injuries and the effect on the cyclist’s life, and that there was no specific offence related to causing serious injury by careless driving.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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63 comments
When I first came across these stories, my daughter was about the same age as the little girl and it always concerned me how parents would just bump up onto the pavement on the school run while other small children were walking past. A regular offender was a pickup truck, possibly like the one that killed the little girl.
Have we as a society now normalised driving on pavements?
How many more lives will be sacrificed to the gods of oil and industry?
I think we can imagine the furore and media storm that would result if it were a delivery cyclist that killed a small child on a pavement.
I think you know the answer to the first. There must be an awful lot of cranes legally lifting cars on to and off the footway in my neck of the woods otherwise. Not forgetting "I have to squeeze through on the left".
That second one was my memorable one and I was trying to link to that one. I thought it was a van and not a pickup which is why I couldn't find it.
However as HP noted, they both show that driving blindly on to pedestrian paths is now considered normal driving as one wasn't even prosecuted and the other was cleared by his "peers" in driving.
They were both horrible and I don't know what I would have done as a parent - probably something reckless out of pure grief and anger.
At least the comments in one of the articles had people saying driving on the pavement is a clear offence so how did they get off.
In the Liverpool Echo, yes the comments are sensible. I first read the story in MailOnline, however, and some people were blaming the mother for letting her daughter go on ahead on her scooter. Someone also said kids on scooters are a menace!
Ridiculous - he was convicted of failing to stop (as well as much else) which carries a sentence of up to 6 months' imprisonment
Sentencing guidelines here:
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates-court/item/fai...
CULPABILITY demonstrated by one or more of the following
Factors indicating higher culpability
Offence committed in circumstances where a request for a sample of breath, blood or urine would have been made had the offender stopped
Offence committed by offender seeking to avoid arrest for another offence
Offender knew or suspected that personal injury caused and/or left injured party at scene
Giving false details
CHECK
HARM demonstrated by one or more of the following
Factors indicating greater harm
Injury caused
Significant damage
CHECK
Category 1 Higher culpability and greater harm
CHECK
Level of seriousness
Category 1
Starting Point
High level community order
Range
Low level community order – 26 weeks’ custody
Disqualification/points
Disqualify 6 – 12 months OR 9 – 10 points (Extend if imposing immediate custody)
Where was the problem???
Alas as with so many things "up to" some number clearly includes zero.
Sounds like some good work on his behalf by the lawyers. Hopefully they'll be prosecuting next time.
Drive uninsured, hit someone who you think was a bollard (how bad is your eyesight if you think a cyclist is a bollard? Altenratively, they might just be a despicable coward, and the bollard thing was a lie), seriously injure them and leave them for dead.
AND BE BACK ON THE ROADS 12 MONTHS LATER?
Surely this is worth a serious revocation of license - 10 years, maybe?
Hit a bollard
https://twitter.com/WorldBollard/status/1533912387887284232
Once again, this failure of the legal system to deal with dangerous, callously indiffernt drivers will be addressed by the comprehensive review of road law; due any day.
It seems the problem here is two-fold. There is currently no offence of causing
deathserious injury by careless driving so he couldn't be charged for that. The CPS and courts (aided by the Police) have reduced the standards of driving so much that riding through and over a cyclist thinking it was only a bollard is seen only as careless.Don't think the cyclist died but was 'left for dead'
The major had captained Sandhurst and army rowing crews at Henley. He branded Jones a “despicable coward” for leaving him and going to a Premier Inn at Holyhead where police found the car.
“My life has changed beyond recognition,” the victim added. “I am lucky to be alive.”
Yep, mis-typed and now edited. The government is trying to add that sentencing into Law along with increasing causing Death by Dangerous Driving AND the weird misnomer of causing death by careless driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs. The latter is a perfect example of poor laws against drivers as in my eyes, that should be dangerous driving.
The CPS and courts (aided by the Police) have reduced the standards of driving so much that riding through and over a cyclist thinking it was only a bollard is seen only as careless
Now you see the results of the policy of the police writing out the 'insufficient evidence- let's get back to the station for do'nuts' dodge before they've even left the station for the incident where you have just been seriously injured or killed.
Surprised about this one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-61870184
Sounds the sort of calibre lancs police would snap up !
As I understand it children had figured out how to get a false +ve by using orange juice.
Disgraceful.
If you do actually think that you've hit a bollard, then take a minute to check that you haven't left someone for dead. This is exactly the kind of person that needs to be permanently banned from driving.
Even if they had hit a bollard, who wouldn't immediatley pull over to check the car's safe to drive?
If he was of good character and was under the limit how come he was driving an uninsured car?
It seems more likely he's a multiple offender who just hasnt been caught before.
Absolutely! The way driving is handled by the police and justice system in this country really is a travesty.
I suspect he was only under the limit because they found him some time later and he presumably still had a liver. I'd venture that had he stopped and been breathalised there and then, then he would have been over the limit...
The fact is that clearly couldn't be proved. Presumably no point in bringing in further evidence to demonstrate that point because the "I had a drink at my destination to calm my nerves" will probably be enough to throw doubt on any work proving it.
As with others - it seems a case of "falling between charges / penalties" - he very definitely did do some illegal things and those should have been enough for prison - you'd have thought...
Roll on the road safety review - broken record, more enforcement, more use of suspension of licence and a real need to enforce that too.
The guy is clearly a liar and an absolute scumbag.
Why would he need a drink to calm his nerves, after all he had just hit a bollard.
In addition to that, if you are so incompetant / unaware of your surroundings that you can genuinely hit a cyclist and think it was a bollard then you shouldn't be anywhere near the roads in the first place.
This whole thing is a horrible example of why people drive like utter bellends in this country, safe in the knowledge that no matter what they do they will be treated like they have just made an oopsie.
The breathyliser was over the limit at the hotel, it was the blood test which showed him as "sober" which could be explained away as having a drink in the hotel.
In the local paper:
Explaining his health, Mr Killeen said Jones had an “old” high level of drinking.
Clearly likes a drink, so easy to sell to a 'jury' that he'd had a drink at the hotel.
That does seem to be a weird description as the blood test is actually more "historical" then a breathlyser which can be fooled with mouthwash etc. They actually mention health issues in the "reasons not to send my client to court" reasonings so I thought he was explaining away that.
I wonder what that even means...?
It should be treated the same as failing to provide. If you leave the scene and are found to have alcohol in your system, it should be a default assumption you were over the limit.
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