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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Texting van driver cleared of responsibility for death of 18-year-old cyclist
A driver who admitted exchanging texts with his girlfriend before his van hit and killed an 18-year-old cyclist has been cleared of causing death by dangerous driving, and of causing death by careless driving.
Philip Sinden was driving the Vauxhall Vivaro that hit and killed 18-year-old triathlete Daniel Squire on the A258 at Ringwould in Kent at around 8:40am on September 7 2013.
After the verdict, the family of Daniel Squire shouted at the jury: “Were you not listening?”, “What a waste of time” and “I can’t believe that”, reports Kent Online's Paul Hooper.
During the trial the court heard that Sinden had sent 19 texts and received 22 from his girlfriend between 6.07am and 8.32am. He and his girlfriend continued texting until she sent a message at 8.39.49. He was alleged to have composed a message at around 8.40am which was never sent.
Prosecutor Dale Sullivan said: “The defendant had been using his mobile phone either just before or at the time of the impact and he failed to react to the presence of Daniel who was in front of his vehicle until the very last moment.”
But Sinden claimed that he had not been distracted by using his phone.
“I was texting just using my left hand. When I pulled out onto the road I was trying to keep my attention on the road, so I typed without looking at the phone.”
He claimed Daniel Squire had unexpectedly joined the carriageway from the pavement.
“I realised it was a cyclist on the pavement on my left hand side. He started to come off the pavement and I started to react. I started to brake and steer around the cyclist.
“It was all very quick but it seemed to me he had adjacened [sic] out slightly from the lane he should have been on.”
Sinden told the jury that Daniel had turned around and looked behind him “just before it [the van] struck the bike”.
“He just came out more than I expected. I spiked my brakes," he said.
Members of Daniel Squire's family attended every day of the trial at Canterbury Crown Court.
Judge Heather Norton expressed her “profound sympathy” for Daniel's family.
She told them: “I appreciate that is not the verdict you were expecting and was not the verdict you were hoping for.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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82 comments
The DPP should call this in for review if he can, especialy if the 'pavement' claim is untrue.
Like me, write a letter to the Attorney General requesting that the sentence is reviewed. At the contact details below:
Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP
Attorney General
Attorney General’s Office
20 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0NF
Email: correspondence [at] attorneygeneral.gsi.gov.uk
Rather of a waste of paper: You can't ask for his sentence to be reviewed. There was none. The defendant was found not guilty. You cannot appeal a not guilty verdict.
Yes, noticed that
thanks. Written for 'a review' not sure that will work.
There may be an opportunity to ask for a retrial in the public interest with the CPS
It can be appealed if the judge incorrectly directed the jury, got the law wrong or just totally misunderstood the issues which was evident in his directions to the jury. But it would have to be a significant and relevant error on their part.
If the victim's family, a prominent campaigner or cycling charity seeks support for such a petition, I'm certain the interest will be significant.
So far ..
He was acquitted of "causing death by dangerous driving" and a lesser charge of "causing death by careless driving".
This does not exclude the possibility of further prosecutions for ..
a.) Manslaughter
b.) Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (was Daniel ever on the pavement ??)
c.) Use of a hand held phone or similar device, when driving.
Lets just hope the numpties at the CPS that screwed this up the first time are replaced by some real mean prosecuting machines and that the MoFo van driver is carted away and locked up for a very very long time.
PS....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4406129.stm
According to Dan's mum he only stopped after being flagged down by another motorist 125meters down the road. His lack of remorse is most shocking.
The question HAS to be asked, why, unlike the convention for most trials where death or serious injury has taken place, was there NO SITE VISIT made by the Court so that the judge & jury could appraise the evidence and statements with a clear knowledge of the crash site and other road details relevant to the case.
We must also question WHO or WHAT set the requirement to EXCLUDE FROM THE JURY:
ANY PERSON LIVING WITIN 2 MILES OF THE CRASH SITE OR REGULARLY USING THE A 258
ANY PERSON WITH THE MOST REMOTE LINK TO DANIEL - IE BEYOND FAMILY AND FRIENDS.
The exclusion of close relatives and friends is an expected caveat but the latter seems a bit excessive and does not appear to be matched by a similar caveat applied to the defendant. Were these conditions initiated through the petitioning of the defence team?
More & more detail is emerging which suggests serious omissions and statements made which cannot be substantiated by a factual analysis most notably the claim to have covered 1.2 miles in under 50 seconds from standing start to stopped after the crash, driving legally (NB 1 mile in 60 seconds = driving at legal limit passing start & finish point at 60mph)
Around 20 years ago STV staged a rear end crash using a remote controlled car and crash test dummy set up on a bike. Their crash analysis engineers were able to highlight the damage to the car delivered at an impact speed of 27.3mph, both to the car and to the 'victim'
Particularly noticable was the damage that an 60-100Kg adult can do when given the destructive energy of a 30mph or greater impact (15 KJ of energy has to be turned into the breaking of a body and damage to a car) converting that in half a second or less puts over 30KW of power into the damage process.
BigglesMeister,
Thank you for clearing up the incident location for me. From the report and the timings (text and emergency call) I had assumed that the incident had occurred almost immediately after Sinden had turned onto the A258.
If his last text received was at 08.39.49 before he joined the A258 and the emergency call (from another driver) was at 08.40.44 then that only gives him 55seconds to go from a near standing start to go about 1.2miles. Now take off the time for the other driver to stop and call the emergency services (say 5seconds at best) and your down to 50seconds.
If you take into account the 0-60mph time of a Vauxhall Vivaro which is about 10seconds (depending on engine) then Sinden's testimony is clearly not credible.
I know it is wrong to sink into conjecture in these situations, but, I can't help feeling that Sinden has ploughed into Daniel Squire whilst being distracted by what he was doing inside the vehicle.
How this is not an 'open and shut case' of Causing Death by Dangerous Driving is beyond me. This is as gross a miscarriage of justice as you will ever find and it must be appealed.
Appalled, no other words necessary.
Utterly tragic for Daniel and his family. Just tragic for all cyclists. And a complete tragedy of the legal system.
More:
http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/somethings-seriously-wrong...
That's the first detail I've seen about the hitherto enigmatic jury oddities. Thanks. What's the provenance of that information?
this is sickening. the idiot was texting. end of. how they could accept he was left hand texting and driving speaks volumes of the jury's intelligence. no one could defend the victim who is now DEAD and GONE forever, all they had was the murderer's version and of course he would concoct some nonsense. he couldnt deny the texting but to say it was left handed and separate from his attention is despicable. i detest seeing people texting at the wheel it's the most idiotic thing to do in a car, right up there with smoking while your kids are in the back. thoughts to the victim's family who have lost their son while someone's else's son lives on. lives on as a murderer with no shame or remorse. pathetic justice system. also, the council could do more and clear the shrubbery blocking that damn pavement, i see it a lot, total lack of maintenance meaning riders are FORCED onto the road because of overgrown hedges. has happened to me countless times and thankfully i've not been killed. but they're probably too busy swigging ale with that throatless guffawing plonker Farage.
Please establish contact via Twitter -https://twitter.com/Kent_Cyclist
This could be important evidence that wasn't aired at the trial.
Please establish contact via Twitter (via Kent_Cyclist)
This could be important evidence that wasn't aired at the trial.
Here's a synopsis of what happened with the selection of the jury. Remember that the original date of the trial had already been postponsed by 12 months. I would have expected the judge, who was been based at Canterbury for 3 years, to take a little bit of time prior to the case to examine the geography of the area around the collision site as this was a "death on the road."
1. The judge indicated that regular users of those road should be excluded from the panel - what does regular mean? Most drivers who live in that area would use this road!
2. The judge then indicated that jurors who lived within a certain radius of the collision site should also be excused from duty.
She then named Ringwould and St. Margaret’s as the two places of exclusion, thus demonstrating her lack of local knowledge.
Upper Walmer, Ripple and Kingsdown are closer to the site than St. Margaret’s. The exclusion zone was changed to a specific radius of 2 miles rather than the two named places.
All very arbitrary, rushed and not thought through.
And no vetting of the jurors to show that they met these criteria.
Why weren't jurors who have been caught using mobile 'phones, but not given a criminal conviction, excluded?
.Why weren't jurors who have been caught speeding in the area, but not given a criminal conviction, excluded?
That information was recorded by observers at the trial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs0iwz3NEC0
Bez has updated his Beyond the Kerb blog on 15 April with further evidence of the wrong verdict.
bit.ly/1FXiYLS
Many thanks for his sterling efforts.
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