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news
Fabian Road Middlesbrough (Google Maps)Driver who pursued teenage cyclist and rammed him off bike avoids jail
A driver — enraged by a teenager accidentally clipping her wing mirror pursued a 16-year-old cyclist and smashed her vehicle into the boy's bike, knocking him to the ground with facial injuries — has walked away from court with a suspended sentence.
Phoebe Groves pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and dangerous driving, and was told by the judge at Teesside Crown Court that it is "highly unusual" for a driver to avoid immediate jail time in such circumstances, but was handed a 12-month sentence suspended for two years and a 12-month driving ban, as well as 150 hours of unpaid work and 40 rehabilitation activity requirement days.
The Northern Echo reports judge Timothy Stead was shown CCTV footage of Groves, 22, ramming her Vauxhall Astra into the 16-year-old as he pulled up outside his house on Fabian Road, Middlesbrough, at just after 8pm on 7 August 2021.
The impact threw the teenager into the air before he landed on the footpath, suffering grazing to his face and swelling around both eyes, and came after Groves had pursued the cyclist, angered by a friend of his who had accidentally clipped her vehicle's wing mirror moments earlier.
At sentencing, prosecutor Jon Harley told the judge the boy had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of Groves' assault, while in her victim impact statement the boy's mother said he "is not the same person anymore" and never leaves the house and barely takes care of himself.
Describing the attack, Mr Harley said the boy "was hit from behind by the vehicle driven by the defendant. He was thrown from his bike and he hit the pavement before the car drove off."
In mitigation, Rod Hunt suggested his client was "not at the time, in her right mind" and argued Groves had suffered a "brainstorm" when she became enraged by the contact with her wing mirror. He also stressed that Groves had returned to the scene after initially driving off.
"You have heard me say that people who come before this court for using a vehicle as a weapon deliberately and cause injury, almost always will go immediately to prison," judge Stead told her.
"I know that you know that what you did was very wrong, I believe that you are deeply sorry for it.
"Your case is exceptional.
"If you do breach the order within the next two years, and I don't believe that you will, then the court will start with the suspended sentence and then will include anything else."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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42 comments
I think I may set up a company...
Take the video evidence from cases like this, or do a lovely reconstruction. In the video, rather than it being "a deviant wing mirror clipping child ('s friend) that is 'slightly injured'...
Swap out for the judges grandchild, the defence lawyers wife, a jury members grandchild (where jury is involved). Start with a lovely little montage of them from first steps, first word, first day at school, first pedal on the bike... Then show a 'brainstormed' person in their most angry phase, show the crash tests of a car hitting something as hard as a wall, then show the video with that grandchild/wife/child being hit with a car, flying through the air, landing face down on the ground. Perhaps go as far as to show the ambulance, the therapy required and the potential impact of the victim losing confidence, possibly becoming an angry, brainstormed person going forwards...
Not guilty?
Because someone who has so little control over their anger that they launch potentially murderous assaults against another person because someone else (not their victim) touched their precious automobile will clearly never do anything like that again, just the once and it's out of their system.
She was so angry that someone touched (might have damaged?) her car that she deliberately drove it into someone else and in the process risked damaging her own car. Insane.
Madness but it's certainly - and sadly - not exceptional. Another facet of the "I'm so angry you've slowed me up a few seconds I'll stop and have a fight for ten minutes" psychology.
Also regrettably this is common enough that the judiciary often recognise it and find it an excuse. Or possibly they relate strongly to the irritation or even anger felt when the privilege conferred by driving a vehicle is challenged.
`Another facet of the "I'm so angry you've slowed me up a few seconds I'll stop and have a fight for ten minutes" psychology.`
Yep I've experienced many of these, as no doubt you have too, on the streets of Edinburgh
You were doing alright until you mentioned her risking damaging her car.
Well we everyone knows that it's all about the car
What are we missing here.. how is it 'exceptional'.. something doens't add up.. OR it's just another example of the punishments for drivers being 'exceptionally' shite.
Also lawyers should be punished for using made up words like 'brainstorm', she was 'angry'.
Brainstorm is not a made up word ... except in the sense that all words, ultimately, are made up.
Exceptional, my arse.
She initially drove away, yet returned to seek revenge.
This was no momentary brainstorm, but a deliberate, premeditated assault.
Should be locked up by now, but the soft touch judge bought her defence hook, line and sinker.
If some group of kids had flicked her mirror and she chased down the road and ran one over?
But cyclists...
Wouldn't it be a given that if anyone "accidentally'' clipped her wing mirror, she was passing too close to start with? Aren't proper safe-driving standards supposed to ensure that motor vehicles are far enough from people - be they cyclists or pedestrians - that those vulnerable road users can't "accidentally'' make contact with the mirrors? The rest of it just laughable. The judge sounds like he must have just arrived from some other planet.
That assumes she was passing them at all. I would have said it's more likely in context that the cyclists were passing her, e.g. filtering past while she was in a traffic queue. I have once clipped a mirror in those circumstances.
[EDIT - I see in the comments below there's some suggestion she brake-checked them, which I hadn't seen when posting]
Can't a sentence be appealed for being too lenient? Surely a custodial term, followed by voluntary work and driving ban with extended driving test for follow on the period after gaol
Another judge out of touch with reality, it is sadly all to usual for drivers to escape jail time in such circumstances. But lets assume it is unusual, what justification does the judge give?
well..... If the case is exceptional it seems more aggravating tha mitigating.
1) the victim was a minor
2) the driver hit the stationary victim from behind witha a car FFS
3) there was a pursuit, time in which the defendant could have calmed down, but didn't
I wonder what evidence they have that the other teenager hit her wing mirror (rather than her wing mirror hitting said teenager due to substandard driving...)
...but I'll let that happen anyway.
The judge has apparently failed to articulate what is "exceptional" about a driver losing her temper, other than possibly she was sorry about it (having been prosecuted).
I am sure if the parent had chased the driver to their home address then beaten them with a six iron they had conveniently to hand, the judge would have accepted it as "not at the time, in their right mind" and a "brainstorm" and let them off with a slap on the wrist. --- Oh look, a flying pig. How many times are these idiots in wigs going to let motorists off with attempted murder.
But it's even worse than that.
The equivalent would be for the parent to go and savagely attack a random person who was also driving a car in the area at the time.
This is what happens when a significant number of people think it's OK to use a vehicle as a weapon.
I hope she struggles to get a job and can't afford the insurance if/when she gets her driving licence back. On yer bike lass, you can pedal off some of that pent-up anger.
As for her lawyer Rod Hunt's truly pathetic effort of "She was not at the time, in her right mind" then perhaps she shouldn't have been behind the wheel of a car!
The 10 most read articles listed at the bottom of the Northern Echo article links to 3 more driver-related articles:
Well, a quick trawl of Google for the driver's name does bring up several hits. I'm sure that the convicted driver will be checking that assaulting a minor with a deadly weapon, and leaving them (possibly for dead) might be at odds with any professional standards that they are expected to adhere to. (A search of the Northern Echo for 'cyclist collision' brought up more than 20 items all since August '21. Very depressing.)
Be careful over that, they are not the same if you look at linkedin and track back on their school exam dates. This defendant is 22.
Thanks for the warning, but I'm not referring to a linkedin post. And the 'profession' I refer to is not the first one that comes up on Google. I'm trying to be as vague as possible for obvious reasons, and in the knowledge that there must be many people with the same name. I have nevertheless edited my post to avoid any suggestion that I am misidentifying anyone else as the convicted driver.
Staggering. Using any other type of weapon would have resulted in an immediate, lengthy gaol sentence, but use a car......
She has proved beyond any doubt that she is not mentally capable of driving a lethal machine in public, but is only banned for 12 months? She should be banned until she has passed a most rigorous psychiatric examination for her suitability to drive without suffering a "brainstorm"; next time she could kill.
Still, at least she's on notice for two years, having been given a suspended one year sentence:
"The judge added: “If you do breach the order within the next two years, and I don’t believe that you will, then the court will start with the suspended sentence and then will include anything else.”
What's the difference between a brainstorm and road rage?
What's the difference between a brainstorm and road rage?
Apparently, with the former you just have to express regret and possibly shed a few tears, and you get off.
Road rage is aimed at another driver (and therefore bad); brainstorm is at a cyclist (and therefore excusable).
Headline should be: driver gets away with 'attempted GBH', with only a joke penalty. I think we all know now that drivers will usually get away with a similar offence against us, on the grounds that the driver was justifiably outraged at a cyclist 'being in the way'
Is it not 'successful GBH' or 'attempted murder'?
Being a bit pedantic: the conviction was the "actual bodily harm" which is a step down in seriousness from "grievous bodily harm" - so in the court's view, the injuries did not amount to successful GBH.
And "attempted murder" requires intent to kill. Obviously we've only got the bare bones of the case, but even I (appalled as I am at the drivers actions) am skeptical that there was intent to kill.
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