A motorist who verbally abused and threatened a cyclist who had waved at him to slow down, before viciously assaulting him during a supposedly chance encounter the following day, has been handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
Philip Turvey was driving on Mellis Road, in the small Suffolk village of Mellis on 15 February 2024 when he attempted to overtake a cyclist, who gestured towards him, indicating that he should drop his speed, Ipswich Crown Court was told this week.
After passing the 67-year-old cyclist, Turvey – angered by the gesture – stopped his car 50 metres later, blocking the road. According to prosecutor Godfried Duah, the driver rolled down his window and asked the cyclist: ““What the f*** are you doing telling me to slow down? I’m doing the speed limit.”
58-year-old Turvey then got out of his car and shouted at the cyclist to “come on and fight me”, before swearing at the pensioner and telling him to “go back to Africa”.
> “We have reached the bottom”: SUV driver charged with murder after cyclist’s road rage death leaves French cycling community “deeply shaken”
The following day, Turvey was preparing to take his dog for a walk when he met the cyclist, allegedly by chance, having parked his car outside his home, the East Anglian Daily Times reports.
As the cyclist left his home, Turvey confronted the 67-year-old, demanding an apology, before shouting and swearing at him once more and grabbing him by the throat.
At that point, the victim threw his bike forward to create space between him and Turvey, making contact with the driver’s car in the process. Turvey grabbed the cyclist’s throat once again, telling him: “I’m going to kill you”.
The 58-year-old then punched the cyclist several times in the face, leaving him with bruising and swelling to his mouth. In a victim impact statement read to the court, the cyclist said he was fearing for his life during the vicious attack.
> “I’ll knock your f***ing teeth in!” Road rage motorist who got out of car to threaten cyclists after pulling recklessly into bike box was driving whilst disqualified and without insurance
At Ipswich Crown Court this week, Turvey pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm. He was handed a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to undertake a 20-day rehabilitation activity and 60 hours unpaid work.
He was also banned from contacting the victim for two years and told to pay £250 in costs and £500 compensation to the cyclist.
“This was a road rage incident which shouldn’t have spilled over into the following day,” judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley told the motorist, who claimed the court that he was remorseful and wished he hadn’t behaved in such a manner. Turvey also said that he has now put his house up for sale and is looking to leave the area.
> 20-year-old female cyclist followed and assaulted by road rage driver after gesturing for him to give her space
Unfortunately, similar road rage attacks on cyclists – including those who gestured at motorists to drive in a safer manner – are all too common in the UK.
Last year, a female cyclist was assaulted by a motorist in Bristol, who followed her before attacking her and kicking her bike after she gestured for the driver to give her space on the road.
The 20-year-old cyclist was riding on Bristol’s Shaldon Road on 10 April when she attempted to warn the driver of a black Land Rover Discovery that he was driving too closely to her.
The cyclist’s gesture, however, seemingly incensed the motorist – a man in his late 50s or early 60s – who then followed the 20-year-old before getting out of his car and assaulting her.
The man also kicked the cyclist’s bike and shouted obscenities at her during the alarming road rage attack. The motorist eventually drove off after three women came to the victim’s aid.
And in September, a 37-year-old man was arrested and charged with assault following an incident in Edinburgh, the video of which went viral on social media and showed the moment a cyclist was thrown to the ground by a driver who slammed the victim’s head against the road.
> Police make arrest after sickening footage of cyclist slammed to ground by driver goes viral
The video, which was viewed more than 26 million times on X/Twitter the weekend it was posted, shows a cyclist standing front of a vehicle as its passenger remonstrates with him in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
A male driver then got out of the vehicle, before walking up to the cyclist and grabbing both hands around his neck, slamming the rider off his bike and hitting his head against the road.
Afterwards, the passenger and driver returned to the vehicle, which had a learner plate in the front windscreen, while the cyclist was seen holding his head and lying motionless in the road.
Add new comment
77 comments
How can you tell if a girl is ticklish?
Give her a couple of test tickles and see if she laughs.
Oh stop talking balls, Burt.
Never! I'm reporting you to somebody in authority for trying to restrict my freedom of speech. It's every true born Englishman's proudest entitlement to be able to talk balls e.g. Farage, Boris, Tommy two names etc.
So what have we learnt from this? Tough new laws on cycling - that's what we need...
The "war" on motorists continues unabated obvs
I mean, fucking hell. Everything about this screams angry scumbag that should be in prison for some time and should have his license taken away. He doesn't seem to understand that staying under the speed limit doesn't make you safe or mean you are abiding by the rules.
So far we have:
Racism, threats, road rage, assault. I'm sure he will have learned his lesson though with such a stiff punishment. Pathetic excuse for a human being and pathethic punishment.
Assault a cyclist, appear to be remorseful in court, don't go to prison. Good to know, thanks Ipswich Crown Court /s
I'm sure if I totally lost my shit with an OAP driver, blocked them, threatened them and racially abused them, then "accidentally" found them the next day, pulled them from their car and beat them up I would get a suspended sentence…we seem to have moved on from what we all knew was the case already, that you can pretty much do what you like to somebody with a car, to you can pretty much do what you like as long as your car is tangentially involved in your psychotic behaviour and still stay out of jail.
By the way does anybody (chrisonabike?) know what happened to the driver in the Edinburgh assault mentioned above? I can only find out that he appeared in court shortly afterwards and was bailed to appear at a later date, has he not been tried yet?
It's all quite quiet up here on that scumbag, Rendel.
Rumours have it that the seman stain that was driving has the car on motability and that Police Scotland have made the scheme provider change this piece of shits car due to doxing risk... FoC of course.
Rumour also has it, that this waste of DNA is well known to the PS .. but is unlikely to face serious charges.
How much is true .. who knows.
But, everywhere is quiet.
Yup - trail (officially) gone cold. It may just be because the courts work in their own sweet time. It may...
Thanks for the update both. As usual, one is forced to wonder whether the justice system would be quite so lackadaisical if footage existed of a cyclist smashing a driver unconscious by beating their head onto the tarmac....
As the cyclist left his home, Turvey confronted the 67-year-old, demanding an apology, before shouting and swearing at him once more and grabbing him by the throat.
The 58-year-old then punched the cyclist several times in the face,...
......has been handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
SUSPENDED!? Incredible. Just who does he know? The local chief constable? Goes to the same lodge as the judge?
I bet he's glad it was only a cyclist, not someone important, like another driver. If it had been anyone else, they'd be banged up by now. Can you imagine what sentence you'd get for assaulting someone and threatening to kill them: unless it's a cyclist. But people who go on peaceful protests about humans destroying the planet get five years.
Our laughably called "justice system" stinks, but after the news today that the planet is now 1.75 degrees C hotter, we're all f****d anyway.
I'd presume the clearly has anger issues driver was on a first offence and prisons are full.
But be thankful you don't have to share the roads with people like that.
You make an interesting point here; a threat to kill is a serious offence in its own right. The challenge for prosecutors being to prove that the offender meant it at the time, or that the victim genuinely feared for their life in the moment.
Having someone follow you to your home, grab you, hit you, and then threaten to kill you, would in my mind make it a more than reasonable for the victim to believe their life was genuinely being threatened.
I'm interested to know why this wasn't taken further. I'm also surprised the racial element was not taken into account.
From the report, it sounds like he was charged based on the physical assault that took place the next day, whereas the racial comment was part of the road rage incident.
It's remarkable.
I'm generally in favour of non-prison based forms of punishment and rehabilitation, but there's something about a suspended sentence that is unsatisfactory in cases like this. Yes, there's the mandated rehablitation activity & community service, and while it's not something I'd like to do, it doesn't sound that tough for him to carry on with his life as if it hadn't happened. People with those racist attitudes rarely exist in a vacuum, so the odds are that he'll be telling his friends he was a victim of injustice etc.
I assume some aspects were hard to prove, and so could not be taken into account for sentencing, but can we not require at least some people on suspended sentences wear a tag for a period of time to at least limit their social life for a couple of months.
It's also yet another reminder why running a camera can be useful. If there was evidence to back up the initial dangerous driving and racially aggrevated abuse, then a more severe sentence, impacting his licence, might have been more likely.
How about a driving ban to accompany a suspended sentence? There is already a section that allows a ban for any offence.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/17/section/163
Of course that would be against their magna carta rights.
Of course our courts a) enshrine "innocent until proven guilty" and b) judge each charge on its merits (broadly) in isolation, with "previous" only being accounted for in the penalty phase...
... and while this often produces results which are difficult to swallow I think those are good principles...
... BUT for specific types of offending I think we may have the balance a bit off. e.g. Offenses around driving and cars - never mind strictly "driving offenses" - seem to be a societal blind spot.
It's the "otherwise law abiding" / "previously unblemished record" scenario where what that most likely shows is the a gaps in our detection and prosecution. It's really rather unlikely this individual has not long been a danger to people on the roads via their aggressive attitude while driving, and also unlikely they won't have been violent before in general. And sadly imilarly unlikely that this will be the end of it
Pages