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Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgDrivers who ‘didn’t see’ cyclists they killed both escape jail
Two motorists who said they “didn’t see” the cyclists they killed, with one of the fatal crashes taking place in Cambridgeshire and the other in Lincolnshire, have escaped jail, with one handed a suspended jail sentences, the other a community order.
George Donaldson, aged 88, died in hospital on 5 October 2017, five days after he was struck by 78-year-old Josephine John in Sawston, Cambridgeshire at around 1.15pm on Saturday 30 September.
The motorist, who lived locally, had been driving around the roundabout at High Street and Link Road when she hit Mr Donaldson, reports the Cambridgeshire Independent.
When she was interviewed by police in June 2018, she said that she heard a “clatter” as she drove around the roundabout, and said she “didn’t see” the cyclist before the collision.
John was voluntarily interviewed in June 2018 and claimed she was negotiating the roundabout when she heard a “clatter”.
She pleaded guilty at Cambridge Crown Court to causing death by careless driving and was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and was also banned from driving for a year.
PC Ian Masters of Cambridgeshire Constabulary said: “This is a tragic case that has sadly resulted in an elderly man losing his life.
“Although John did not intend for this collision to happen, it is a stark reminder of the importance of the responsibility motorists have in staying alert.
“I urge people to ensure they pay careful attention when driving, and be particularly aware of vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians,” he added.
The second case related to the death of Flight Lieutenant Barrie John Docherty, 43, who was cycling home from work at RAF Cranwell when BMW driver Michael Bohan crashed into him on the A607 at Leadenham, Lincolnshire, on the evening of January 7, 2019.
Bohan said that he had not seen the cyclist, who was wearing bright clothing and had working lights on his bike at the time of the fatal collision, reports The Lincolnite.
Prosecutor David Lee told Lincoln Crown Court: “The cyclist was thrown onto the windscreen and died shortly afterwards.
“The defendant, in fairness to him, dialled 999 and others who appeared on the scene helped including a nurse who helped as best she could the deceased man.
“The defendant was going to pick up his daughter. There was a text sent to him and he then made voice calls.”
The court heard that Bohan’s mobile phone was fixed to his car and that the motorist was using a Bluetooth earpiece.
“The position is that at the time he was carrying on a conversation and not texting. It does appear, therefore, that was a fact which may have been the reason why he said he simply didn’t see the cyclist,” Mr Lee said.
“There was no fault with the vehicle that he was driving and there was no fault with the cycle. There is no evidence of excessive speed. It is simply a case where he didn’t see the cycle.
“He has been driving without blemish for some time so he obviously normally drives carefully. This ordinarily careful driver has not seen the cyclist.”
Bohan, who admitted causing death by careless driving, was handed a 12 month community order with 300 hours of unpaid work and was made subject to an electronically monitored night-time curfew for four months. He was also banned from driving for 12 months.
Sentencing Bohan, Judge John Pini QC said: “The consequences of what happened could not have been more catastrophic and they have caused utter devastation to the lives of Mr Doherty’s family.
“On the other hand the culpability is the lowest in the criminal calendar, namely carelessness.
“Mr Bohan had a momentary lapse of concentration and failed to see Mr Doherty.
“In passing sentence I am not putting a value on Barrie John’s life. His life was beyond value to his loved ones and they have the deepest sympathy of this court.
“Mr Bohan accepts that he was using a hands-free phone to talk to his daughter.
“The accident investigator’s report says that he simply did not see Mr Doherty and he was there to be seen.
“Hands-free phones are clearly lawful, although it does not follow that because they are lawful they cannot be a distraction.”
The judge added that “The difficulty I have is one of evidence,” explaining that he could not be certain, based on the evidence presented in court, that the driver’s use of the mobile phone was the reason he had not seen the cyclist.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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55 comments
Indeed! This is why the workplace Health & Safety culture has shifted in recent times to place almost as much focus on 'near misses' as actual incidents. It is well proven that the more near misses you have, the more likely an actual incident resulting in injury or death will occur. It could be just as fairly argued that this particular driver has had multiple near misses but had so far been 'lucky' that no incidents arose. In fact every time a near miss goes by without immediate consequence, the likelihood of a future incident increases as the person perceives that the risks around that near miss are diminished. The whole "it's always been fine before" or "this is how I've always done it" mentality creeps in and the bad behaviour is reinforced. Luck then becomes a big factor!
Exactly this, if you're driving and got away fine with not giving much room etc, especially if you don't notice the cyclist shouting and waving their arms in your mirror, you won't think twice about doing the same again.
If you aren't looking for anything smaller than a motor car, then it would appear you just don't see it.
Reminds me of killer driver Gail Purcell's story about the Flying Sack of Potatoes...
Christ. The apologist pandering to both of these drivers by the sodding police makes me want to puke all over my keyboard.
This is the proecutor: “The defendant, in fairness to him, dialled 999 ...
"that was a fact which may have been the reason why he said he simply didn’t see the cyclist,” Mr Lee said.
“There was no fault with the vehicle that he was driving and there was no fault with the cycle. There is no evidence of excessive speed. It is simply a case where he didn’t see the cycle.
“He has been driving without blemish for some time so he obviously normally drives carefully. This ordinarily careful driver has not seen the cyclist.”
Sounds less like the prosecutor and more like the defence. No wonder he got away with it.
Victim's families shoud appeal the sentence as has the wife of that cop Andrew Harper.
In fact all victim's families should appeal for more severe punishments for all dangerous killer drivers without excuses by courts, cops or CPS acting wrongly as their free legal defence team - this should be seen as perverting the course of justice !
It looks like in Andrew Harpers' case the attorney general has instigated the referral to the Court of Appeal after campaigns by the family....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-53862037
In passing sentence I am not putting a value on Barrie John’s life."
Sorry, but that is exactly what you have done.
Not sure why the reason is what matters here. Surely drivers have an absolute duty to look so as to see, and the fact of not seeing is itself culpable. If they can not see they should not go; as to why they can not see, not relevant.
Not so. As the judge said, the legality of fixed mobile phones does not mean they are not a distraction, so if you do use one the legality should be no excuse.
The driver made a decision to use the phone - that is not some careless momentary lapse of concentration, that is a premeditated act with foreseeable consequences.
As to the punishment, perhaps adding a total ban on use of a mobile phone whilst driving would have been appropriate, along with prison time as a deterent to others.
Words fail me. 12 month ban(s) for killing someone due to dangerous negligence.
Remind me, what sentences did those in the vehicle that killed PC Andrew Harper get? I mean... they claim they just didn't see him and that claim was not proved false. Oh, it's different when it's a cyclist, their lives are worth far less it seems time and time again.
Why is it that killer drivers largely get away with it but killer cyclists must be hung, drawn and quartered?
12 months ban wtf.
Should be banned for life where found guilty of causing the death of another.
I would have hoped for far longer bans for both of these killer drivers.
Only one year without these killers being able to take more lives on our shared road network seems unreasonable to me.
Driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, and taking innocent lives should mean losing that for a little more than 12 months.
Er, no - that doesn't follow at all. This might have been a complete aberration on the part of an otherwise perfectly careful driver who was unlucky enough that their one lapse led to a death, but it could equally well be that they drive distracted all the time and had just been lucky enough not to be involved in a serious incident up to that point.
Whatever you think of lawyers, it's rather astonishing that someone acting as prosecutor in a case like this can be so naive, or so stupid, or so deliberately misleading. That's the critical thinking of a spoon.
That depends on what you think the job of a prosecutor actually is. I was taught that their job is to be SCRUPULOUSLY fair - to both sides - in order to see justice done.
American TV shows (with a background of their politicised prosecutorial offices), and their influence on UK prosecutors over the past 30 years, means that my attitude (and the attitude of the generation that informed it) is somewhat out of fashion. Very dangerous, as if winning becomes more important to the prosecutor than seeing justice done, things tend to move towards "winning at all costs" and huge injustices are just around the corner (especially when you realise that the resources of the prosecution dwarf those of the defence).
I thought the prosecutor was meant to provide the strongest argument for prosecution, the defence provide the strongest argument against, and the judge/jury were to decided where "justice" lies in between those two viewpoints. But I might be wrong
I think (from another post) the person you're replying to has worked in criminal justice for 25 years...
It's not quite as clear cut as you put it; the prosecutor here has a duty to support justice, not necessarily to push for conviction. E.g. the Code for Crown Prosecutors says: "It is the duty of prosecutors to make sure that the right person is prosecuted for the right offence and to bring offenders to justice wherever possible... When making decisions, prosecutors must be fair and objective... Prosecutors must always act in the interests of justice and not solely for the purpose of obtaining a conviction... Prosecutors must be even-handed in their approach to every case, and have a duty to protect the rights of suspects and defendants, while providing the best possible service to victims."
But I agree there's a flaw in the prosecutor's logic here.
Is there a distinction, though, between the prosecutor's role in deciding when to prosecute, and when to continue or withdraw, a case, and the prosecutor as advocate in the court? The Code you've referenced seems to be generally concerned with the former, whereas the Standards of Advocacy seem to lean more towards putting a strong case:
Civil lawyer here, so not qualified to comment in great detail. But the same document makes clear they should put, but not overstate the prosecution case. I guess I'm just saying it's a more balanced role than TV might lead you to believe. But I (still) agree the leap of logic was more even handed than a prosecutor needs to be.
And not the sharpest spoon in the cutlery drawer either.
Two tragic cases which could have been prevented by better laws.
In the first case, it may have been that the elderly driver had age-related impaired eyesight, but our system does not check for that problem, and allows drivers to self-report. The massive A pillar blind spot could also have been a factor, but that is going to take global action by legislators, who think that car occupants are more important than other people.
The second case is more worrying;
“The position is that at the time he was carrying on a conversation and not texting. It does appear, therefore, that was a fact which may have been the reason why he said he simply didn’t see the cyclist,” Mr Lee said."
There is a lot of research which shows that it is the distraction caused by holding a conversation with someone outside of the car that is the problem with mobile phones, not the fact that the driver is holding a phone. Our government, I forget which particular bungling, bumbling set of dimwits it actually was, only made handheld phones illegal, not hands-free; we see the result. I'm sure the review of road laws will pick up on this, the politicians will admit they are wrong and instantly correct their mistake. Must go and fuel up the pigs ready for take off.
My heart goes out to the families of the victims
It really is not acceptable for motorists to say that they "did not see" a clearly visible cyclist
Unless they have defective vision ( and should cease driving ) then what they actually mean is:
"failed to look"
"too distracted"
"didn't ensure to move head to see past vehicle superstructure"
Etc
"didn't see" implies falsely some liability on the part of the cyclist for not being noticeable - and is a way of subtlety victim-blaming, and trying to deflect from the motorist being culpable.
I've had two motorists pull directly out in front of me at the same roundabout recently. Luckily I was looking at their faces and saw that in both cases they were looking straight ahead. Not even an attempt to look to the right as they entered the roundabout
So it wasn't that they didn't see me, it was that they didn't even look
So whilst I don't know anything more than is reported here about these two deaths, I would be very angry to think it might be because to the motorist: the cyclist's life wasn't even worth looking properly for
Yes, the "simply" really grates, as in "simply didn't see". Implies some kind of innocence is at large, no culpability.
In aviation, "didn't see" is not a good defence. Observation is drilled into trainee pilots, I guess because a lot of the time there's not anything to see except cloud, so you need to remind yourself to keep looking. And there are regular sight checks as a condition of keeping a licence.
Drivers who do not see when it is agreed that what they drove into (pedestrian, cyclist, back of lorry, house etc) was clearly visible must either not have looked, have defective vision or not reacted to the image on the retina. All of these things should be appropriately punished.
I understand that cataracts or similar are pretty common in older eyes - my father had them and was too badly affected to drive safely. It's about time that all medical professionals were given the right and the duty to inform DVLA if they are concerned about fitness to drive.
To my mind, if a driver admits to "not seeing" a cyclist/house etc. then they are clearly admitting that they are unfit to drive. I think if they are going to use that excuse, then they should hand in their driving license permanently.
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