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news
Mary Dejevsky Spectator piece (The Spectator)"Ill-informed" Spectator writer under fire for coverage of manslaughter sentencing for pedestrian who caused cyclist's death
Mary Dejevsky, a writer for The Spectator, has attracted criticism for a piece claiming cyclists have "been given licence to ride on the pavement" by Auriol Grey's three-year manslaughter sentence for causing the death of an elderly cyclist during a pavement cycling dispute.
Grey was convicted by a jury at Peterborough Crown Court last month and sentenced last week for causing 77-year-old Celia Ward to fall into the road and the path of an oncoming vehicle when she gestured in a "hostile and aggressive way".
A snippet of CCTV was released from the scene, and the police have asked people to "think twice about commenting in relation to this case when they are not in possession of all the facts".
The detective who interviewed Grey opted against making the entire CCTV clip available, describing it as "not appropriate for wider release" and so "horrific" it would make much of the noise about "appropriate responses [...] null and void".
With that context highlighted, Dejevsky — a former foreign correspondent — said her first reaction to hearing about the sentence was "there but for the grace of God go I" and she admitted to shouting at cyclists riding on pavements, having "a tendency to put my hand out to keep an intruding cyclist at bay" and "standing my ground, to force a cyclist to dismount at the barriers designed to stop them slaloming through narrow pedestrian passageways."
> Remove conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, urge campaigners in wake of manslaughter case
"As a driver stuck in a single lane, reduced in size to accommodate those on two wheels," she continued "I might also have been guilty of hooting at a cyclist, taking one hand off the wheel to point demonstratively at the mostly empty cycle lane that has been expensively paid for with my taxes. Why has he or she swerved into 'my' lane? To avoid the red light that would fractionally delay their progress in their own."
Explicitly stating that she has never said or done anything that has "forced a cyclist into the path of another vehicle", Dejevsky went on to again claim "cyclists will henceforward have a free pass" to use pavements.
"The unusual feature in this case is that both the cyclist and the pedestrian were women, and women, what is more, of a certain age," she wrote. "They were not heedless teenagers, nor were they Lycra-clad racers. It may also be, as the detective in the case insists, that if the public did see the full CCTV, they would accept the verdict as 'cut and dried'.
"For the time being, however, the message I and other pedestrians will hear is that anyone on foot who objects to a cyclist in his or her pavement path risks not just the wrath of the cyclist, but a criminal record."
Dejevsky's piece has drawn criticism, with some of the reaction on social media labelling it "ill-informed", "barely-disguised hatred" and "using such a tragic offence to seed hatred against cyclists".
Reading this article, it's hard to believe someone died as a result. What a terrible take and a disgusting piece.
— Chris Baillie (@chrisbaillie71) March 6, 2023
Has it occurred to @marydejevsky that the reason the police have not shared to entire CCTV film is because the few seconds they have cut show an elderly woman being killed? A tasteless, insensitive article, sadly typical of The Speccie these days.
— Rob McIvor (@rob_mcivor) March 6, 2023
FWIW I'm not a fan of shared paths either; much prefer to see segregated safe paths for both pedestrians and cyclists.
— Jus (@juswild) March 6, 2023
In court, judge Sean Enright said the path was a shared cycleway, something the police nor Cambridgeshire County Council have confirmed, the council saying it is aware it is used by cyclists and "we are looking at this location to see if there is any work required to make things clearer".
As per the National Police Chiefs' Council's advice for officers responding to people cycling on the pavement, "The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.
"Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required."
A 2021 study by by Jonas Ihlström of the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) concluded that pavement cycling should be "viewed as a sensible outcome as seen from the cyclists' perspective" and that "avoiding the space of the car was the most pronounced reason for cycling on the pavement".
"Cycling among motorised vehicles was related to feelings of fear or discomfort, thus choosing the pavement instead of the road was a strategy adopted for managing this perceived risk. Riding on the pavement was therefore connected to a local context and an aspiration for a mobility without risking accidents and injuries," researchers found."
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.
Latest Comments
- Legin 2 min 46 sec ago
Very different actually; reading the detail, this is a minor offence, previously declared, but the Minister has resigned. Compare and contrast this...
- joe9090 12 min 45 sec ago
Bus driver couldnt be bothered to look.
- Rendel Harris 48 min 39 sec ago
Yes, that's exactly what it's supposed to be as we were talking about why if you apply mathematical principles to the phrase "That's three times...
- Natrix 53 min 58 sec ago
Looks like the sort of phone that was designed to be smuggled into prison, via a mars bar or where the sun don't shine...........
- Rendel Harris 1 hour 16 min ago
A good saving no doubt, especially if you're working on rrp for the groupset and wheels, but with 105 Di2 available from multiple retailers for ...
- anotherflat 1 hour 25 min ago
So that's an increase in KSI per mile, if falls are 5 and 6% but miles cycled has decreased 7%, increases of 2% and 1% killed / seriously injured....
- Benthic 1 hour 51 min ago
There's no need for foul language.
- AidanR 2 hours 4 min ago
It is astonishing how cheap you can get bikes for on eBay if you're happy with rim brakes!
- jamesha100 12 hours 36 min ago
I have been in Belfast for work this week and have been shocked by the congestion around the city centre. There are lots of frustrated drivers...
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67 comments
I generally choose not to read that kind of column, as past experience tends to show that the writer either knows little about the subject, has thought more about themselves than the reader, or is part of the "we don't need experts" fingers in the ears ignorati.
The Spectator is the Daily Heil in a smarter costume, but about the same level of manipulative evil.
No that's her being honest.
I hope Celia Ward's family haven't read this shit. Shameful.
Isn't saying "ill-informed Spectator writer" somewhat redundant?
A tautology.
Is there no limit to the extent these so-called journalists will go to malign people simply for being on a bicycle? This opinion piece is not just ill-informed, it's the product of prejudice and designed to create negative reactions towards anyone on a bicycle. That can result in injury or death - just ask the chap injured by wire in Flintshire, or the wire found last month on Cannock Chase.
Indeed. An unnecessary repetition.
Agreed, a repetition that is unnecessary.
Pedantic point - the incident happened in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire (not Cambridge itself as the strapline suggests).
Sometimes I see columns by Mary Dejevsky on the Independent site. She is notably a Russia apologist when it comes to the war in Ukraine. It's all Ukraine's fault apparently.
This is one of the reasons I don't read the Independent any more. They don't seem to hae an editorial position any more, just a despaeration to maximise readership through clickbait articles and opinion pieces written by certifiable nutters.
The Independent is not too bad, if you can fight your way past the autoplay video and sponsored items there are some decent articles. They're curiously good on music sometimes, even metal.
Sadly however no Dizzy Gillespie, no John Coltrane and never any Miles Davis. I knew there was a reason I didn't visit the Independent's website anymore.
I have never been a regular reader of The Independent, but I seem to recall (at least in the early days) that one of the paper's claimed selling points was the fact that it didn't have an editorial position, it just reported the news.
I think that ship sailed a loooong time ago...
It's almost as if The Independent is owned by the son of an ex-KGB agent.
It is but that doesn't shine through in an obvious way. Mary D is on her own with that viewpoint on the Independent, it's not reflected elsewhere, and the Indie is very anti-Brexit when Brexit was something Russia very much liked in terms of sowing division.
I wouldn't expect it to be obvious, and I'm not saying Lebedev is in Putin's pocket. Lebedev has also always been desperate to be part of the British establishment.But it's notable that they give her a platform when others don't.
Apart from the house magazine of the tory party. That could almost be construed as suggesting that the tories are happy to take support from Russian money... which can only be a ridiculous suggestion. Lol.
It is weird though how right-wingers in UK and abroad side with Russia.
Did anyone else see that clip recently where Lavrov (the Russian diplomat) insisted at some big meeting of international diplomats that the "Ukrainian Nazis" started the war, and everybody laughed at him...?
It takes a really spectacularly spiteful, petty and ignorant type of person (of whom we unfortunately have several in this neighbourhood) to look at the homicide of a 77-year-old wife and mother quietly going about her business and to complain that the authorities are "on her side" rather than on the side of the perpetrator who has been found guilty after due process of law and a jury trial. One would say they should be deeply ashamed but they don't appear to have any sense of shame, unfortunately.
Shame, like poverty is for other people.
It's a straightforward matter here to imagine if poor Mrs Ward had been walking or jogging, rather than cycling, and had been yelled at by an aggressive and hostile Auriol Grey, such that evasive action took her in front of a car. And then think how this changes the arguments that people would make.
Basically, if you focus on the fact that she was a cyclist, rather than a pedestrian or something like that, then it exposes the anti-cycling hatred in so many of the arguments.
Its funny, I can't remember who it was but they have basically overlaid a car dash over their cycling footage and miraculously the amount of blame placed on the cyclist deminished massively. Simply because the viewers didn't immediately think "fucking cyclists".
Some people are so anti-cyclist that they genuinely view a video of a cyclist being hit by a car and their first thought itn't "oh my god I hope they are OK" or "what on earth was the driver doing", its "shouldn't be on the roads" and "they don't pay any road tax".
The amazing thing is that I know a shockingly large number of people who are otherwise nice and rational people who still hate cyclists.
I think it is CyclingGaz who has the overlay on some videos
CycleGaz™@cyclegaz
(not point scoring, just in case anyone wants to find him!)
Conversely, if Mrs Grey had been on a bike . . .
At least the article pointed out they were both women and neither young. But has anyone mentioned the further possibility that Mrs Ward was also disabled and using her bike as a mobility aid. Imagine if someone pushed a wheelchair or mobility scooter user off the pavement.
I am, nevertheless, still rather disconcerted by the severity of the sentence and wonder what we haven't been told - apart from the obvious that the clipped video shows that the cyclist was deliberately shoved.
"the cyclist was deliberately shoved."
Well that's it. Enough, no?
It's time that such a hugely irrational, bizarre condition, cyclist-hating, was recognised by the psychiatric world and treatments developed.
I genuinely do wonder why there isn't more interest in the psychology of cyclist hating.
Everyone knows they should hate cyclists, but no one really knows why.
All the excuses, all the anti-cyclist bingo I hear, all seems to be more about justifying a feeling, rather than necessarily the cause of those feelings.
I think some of it is money. Something like:
"I paid £xxxx for my car, and I pay £xxxx for VED and £xxxx for fuel and £xxxx for insurance - it is NOT FAIR that you get to ride around for free, and (in the city) get places quicker than I can. Therefore I hate you."
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