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news
Biscovey Football Club, Cornwall (Google Maps)Driver who left teenage cyclist "for dead" in horrific hit-and-run is given six-month suspended sentence due to 'state of the prison service'
"I can't get over how someone could hit a cyclist and leave them at the side of the road not knowing if they are dead or alive. I feel physically changed, not just by the injuries but the failing to stop and being left for dead."
Those were the words of a teenage cyclist seriously injured in a hit-and-run collision in Cornwall, the driver having now received a six-month suspended sentence and two-year driving ban, the judge reportedly telling the court he had to consider the victim's age and the state of the prison service in sentencing.
A reporter from the Falmouth Packet was at Truro Crown Court to hear how Robert Morse, 56, hit the cyclist on a rural road and left the 17-year-old victim "for dead", fleeing the scene and attempting to hide the Range Rover he was driving, while the injured rider was airlifted to hospital with double breaks to his leg and a 20cm wound to his head.
Morse, who had convictions for 128 previous offences including failure to stop and driving whilst disqualified, only possessed a provisional driving licence at the time of the collision as he had previously been disqualified for other driving offences.
The court heard how the teenage cyclist, who was 17 at the time, was wearing reflective clothing and had lights on his bike. He was riding on a quiet route past Biscovey Football Club and had stopped to take a drink when Morse hit him from behind, immediately fleeing the scene and not offering any help.
The rider had expected the route to be quiet as it was closed due to a sinkhole opening up, however he knew he could get past on his bike safely without issue. While the victim was "left for dead", bleeding and "not knowing if I was going to die", Morse hid his car at a nearby industrial estate and later lied to the police and said he had sold the vehicle.
Two runners heard the screams of the injured cyclist and he was airlifted to Derriford Hospital where his broken tibia and fibula were operated on.
Police were able to match plastic trim from a fog light, found at the scene, to Morse's Range Rover. He was also seen on CCTV driving the vehicle, prompting officers to park near his home where he was seen walking past and "hiding his face".
The driver repeatedly lied to officers, telling them he had sold the vehicle and that a key for the vehicle they found was just "a spare key". He later admitted hitting a cyclist but said the collision was caused by the victim coming out "straight in front of him". He also claimed dash cam footage would confirm this account, although police officers did not find a camera.
Judge Simon Carr accused the driver of "the most breathtaking cowardice" and suggested he "would rather someone had died than be held responsible for your actions".
"You would have known immediately what you had done and displayed the most breathtaking cowardice to leave someone," the judge told the court. "You would rather someone had died than be held responsible for your actions – because if someone hadn't come along and been able to help him, that could have been the outcome.
"Your thoughts are only for yourself and for nobody else. You have minimised your involvement and sought to blame others. This is a young man whose life has been changed forever. However he recovers from the physical and psychological impact, there will never be a complete recovery. You did that and you left him in the road like that."
When it came to handing down the sentence, however, the judge banned Morse from driving for two years and ordered a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. The driver must also pay £1,636 in costs and complete 300 hours of unpaid work. It was also reported that the process of seeking compensation for the victim through insurance companies is underway.
The Falmouth Packet reports the judge told the court the current state of the prison service, namely overcrowding, and Morse's age (56) needed to be considered when sentencing him for causing serious injury by careless driving.
A victim impact statement was heard, the teenager saying he "can't get over how someone could hit a cyclist and leave them at the side of the road not knowing if they are dead or alive".
"I feel I've lost my independence and my confidence," the statement began. "I've never experienced anxiety before but now feel anxious most of the time. I can't get over how someone could hit a cyclist and leave them at the side of the road not knowing if they are dead or alive.
"I feel physically changed, not just by the injuries but the failing to stop and being left for dead. Left in the road, bleeding, not knowing if I was going to die."
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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37 comments
Due to the details of the offences committed by the criminal in this case, along with it's prior history of offending, it is clear there is no conscience whatsoever within it.
The only real punishment would be to permanently remove it's taste buds and libido.
Which would hopefully act as a deterrent to others who are in the same bracket of society.
Record number of protesters in British prisons over Christmas
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/02/cucz-j02.html
Is that because their ankle-tags don't fit? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1el32g75p8o
I wonder why the CPS isn't appealing the joke sentence? I ask this so that somebody with legal knowledge can tell us whether that's possible in such a case
Twas ever thus: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll perfectly sums up the overwhelming arrogance of the rich and how they protect each other. Six months for murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonesome_Death_of_Hattie_Carroll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbwU3J-2kk
Unbelievable. But the judge does deserve some sort of award for managing to make himself a giant gasbag of a hypocrite: You "would rather someone had died than be held responsible for your actions" you coward, but I'm not going to hold you responsible because the prisons are full.
That should, at the very least, get Judge Simon Carr disqualified from any future cases involving cyclists or pedestrians hit by motor vehicles. If Carr can't bring himself to send to prison a man with Morse's record, the only explanation is a serious bias against vulnerable road users.
You have to wonder if the judge belongs to the same lodge as the driver.
"involving cyclists or pedestrians hit by drivers"
http://rc-rg.com
Like this disgusting perpetrator, I'm 56 years old. It wouldn't even occur to me that this fact would get me a reduced sentence if I committed a crime, why on earth should it?
That's what you'd employ legal professionals for?
(But agree with the sentiment. And this one does seem to be such a lifelong and clear wrong 'un that the legal game seems to be both trivialising and unfair.)
I'm 73. I'm robbing the nearest bank tomorrow, setting fire to a few cars, and beating up a local tory, safe in the knowledge that I won't be going to prison.
I don't think you're taking this seriously. The story is about some damage to a bicycle (and its rider - a teenager, at that).
But you're talking about damaging cars, and that's something you just shouldn't joke about, much less expect leniency. At your age, you should know better and that will be taken into account at your
condemningsentencing.I mean - if you let their tyres down that's compromising their safety - attempted murder.
What difference? Oh ... planning and "could reasonably foresee harm" in the sabotage case. The law and "normal people" will see that as totally unlike those drivers who were just driving - a totally normal activity BTW, in fact "essential", a "right" even! - when they didn't notice someone and smashed into them. And didn't notice that they had hit anyone and so failed to stop at the scene (well why would you if you didn't think you'd hit someone?). Before e.g.
trying to hide the evidencegiving their car a very good clean / respray, trying to sell it, forgetting that they had ever been in it etc. Those are are all normal things people do all the time, and we know from the existence of NIPs that the law rightly doesn't expect people to remember something while they were driving because most do this for significant periods of time most days.This sentence is flipping joke surely?
A suspended sentence? For someone with form driving without a valid licence?
Didn't they jail a I guy for 2 years for watching TV they other day?[1]
Well thank god the judge used some stern language eh? That'll teach him.
1. Selling access to football. I mean it's not like you can even legally watch all Saturday football matches even if you're willing to pay.
Has road.cc ask Matthew Briggs and Ian Duncan Smith to comment?
Is this the sentencing they wants cyclists to get?
.....left the 17-year-old victim "for dead"
128 previous offences including failure to stop and driving whilst disqualified...
The driver repeatedly lied to officers....
Morse hid his car at a nearby industrial estate....
....said the collision was caused by the victim coming out "straight in front of him"
You've got to be kidding. I don't care how overcrowded the jails are, this person should not be at liberty for a very long time.
He is clearly a hopeless recidivist with no morals and doesn't have the slightest regard for other people. He hit a well lit, stationary cyclist, left them to die, lied to the police, deliberately concealed evidence, blamed the victim and has a history of flouting the law and his driving ban: it is hard to imagine a more serious litany of crime. A cyclist with a similar record wouldn't see the light of day ever again.
We should be afraid. If behaviour like this doesn't bring a lengthy prison sentence, then we are all less safe on the road.
As if to reinforce the message that cyclists are the problem, Panorama tonight at 8pm (BBC 1) is about ebikes: it's called "E-bikes: the battle for our streets". Funny, the BBC have never been negative about electric cars.
The driver got away with a very light sentence. A much longer driving ban, or even a permanent ban, would be suitable. I hope the victim gets very alrge compensation that ensures no insurance copmany will ever want to go near the driver again.
I suspect that won't be much of a deterrant for this scumbag.
Somehow I doubt a permanent ban would affect this individuals choices to drive anyway, given he's already been convicted of driving whilst banned.
doubt he cares much about paying for insurance anymore either.
Hard to know what you can do with someone like this that will convince them to change their ways.
Take out regular full page adverts i the local press and billboards with his picture, the details of his crimes and an offer of a reward for a photograph of him behind the wheel of a car and then fine him for the reward money?
The obvious answer is to ensure that they spend time in prison so that the public are protected from them for a while.
It's that "do the legal costs exceed the cost of issuing a recall" one again!
Sounds like it would need one of those (terrible) IPPs (FWIW - Labour on that bright idea) - but then keeping this person imprisoned for life a) costs a lot b) likely costs even more because they sound pretty asocial and might well not do their time quietly and compliantly c) legal / procedural slippery slopes (see IPPs again).
I'm with stonojnr somewhat on this - without a radical change to some of our systems it's very hard to see how we avoid going round this loop for the rest of their life. It would need at least: a) some wildly different actually rehabilitative legal/prison system (perhaps Norwegian model? But this person might just not be amenable to change, especially now) or b) a radical change in driving laws (these start trending towards murder tariffs with option of very long or whole life orders) or c) both your suggested anti-driving-while-banned tech AND a fairly substantial change to how we police this and sentence (e.g. actually monitor, arrest AND lock people up for such breaches, again probably with an escalating tariff for repeats).
The obvious answer is to ensure that they spend time in prison
We're not told if he's been imprisoned before- if he hasn't, the lesson he's learned about road traffic offences is that you always get away with them. We're implicitly told that he was insured, but that must have been hugely expensive if he told the insurance company the truth. Most likely, he didn't, so isn't the company allowed to renounce the insurance and dump the cost of the 'compensation' onto the uninsured drivers mechanism? Anybody know?
Iirc the uninsured drivers mechanism falls on insurers who covered the vehicle regardless.
The only differences it in theory makes is the insurer can recover from the driver and are only liable for the third party.
In practice they can't get blood from a stone, so suing the driver to recover this party payout is probably pointless so won't happen...
If a driver is completely uninsured then the costs of compensation are met by the Motor Insurer's Bureau, from a fund to which all insurance companies contribute. However, I believe in a case like this where a person has obtained a policy, even if fraudulently, the issuing insurer does have to pay the compensation and then attempt to reclaim it.
"... the driver having now received a six-month suspended sentence and two-year driving ban..."
How is it that these offences don't carry an automatic, non-negotiable lifetime ban from ever holding a licence again? Especially when his history of offending behind the wheel is taken into account. It's far too difficult to lose your licence in this country. Would we renew a shotgun licence for someone who accidentally shot a member of the public - even without the carelessness apparent in this case - and failed to call for medical help?
This.
2 years is iirc the legally mandated minimum ban for the offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving
So how does someone with a huge list of prior offences and aggravating factors get the minimum ban!?!
Sadly another of the many examples of the judiciary, supported by laws that favour motorists, protecting motorists rather than the wider public. Low jail tariffs and weak penalties for road crime are just another one of the many ways that motorists are in effect either enabled, encouraged or subsided to break road laws with apparent immunity within our motocentric society. A shame tbh but the good lambasting will have made him change his mind...not.
With 128 previous offences prior to hitting this cyclist, what is the likelihood of Morse (presumably not Inspector) modifying his behaviour?
A)Sod all.
B)2/3 of nowt.
At the very least, his car should have been confiscated.
And given back to him in the shape of a five foot cube of metal
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