Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

news

Cycling barrister captures death threat on video… insufficient evidence say Met & CPS + video

So, what does it take to get police and prosecuters to take threats and intimidation seriously?

A Queen’s Counsel who is also a keen cyclist is fighting a frustrating battle to have the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Metropolitan Police take action against a driver who threatened to kill him, despite having video footage of the incident.

Martin Porter QC posted footage recorded on his helmet-cam to YouTube (see below) and wrote about what had happened on his blog, The Cycling Silk, the same day the incident happened, Thursday 4 November.

Porter, who has also experienced difficulties in getting the police to respond to incidents reported by him on its Roadsafe website, comprehensively relates the problems he encountered trying to report last week’s incident, which took place in West London, on his blog.

When he contacted the police to try and report the incident, he was told that he needed to visit a police station in person to complete a form. But when he did so, he was initially told he could not report the matter since no-one had been injured.

After stating that he had been told to report to a police station by the Metropolitan Police itself and that he had video evidence, the officer concerned agreed to make a report, but refused to accept the CD with footage of the incident.

On his blog, Porter relates how the officer who recorded it as a “public order offence” asked seemingly irrelevant questions such as whether he was wearing a fluorescent jacket or dressed in Lycra, and erroneously informed him that video evidence was inadmissible if he wasn’t licensed to copy video, saying it would be thrown out of court.

Eventually, after repeated requests to the police, an officer at Chiswick Police Station investigated the incident, but yesterday Porter reported on his blog that no further action was being taken since the police and CPS, who by now had reviewed the footage, believed there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

Porter, who has worked as a barrister for almost 25 years, becoming a Queen’s Counsel in 2006, and is also club secretary of Maidenhead-based Thames Velo, has now written to the CPS official concerned, requesting that the matter be referred to a Senior Crown Prosecutor.

In his letter, the text of which is repeated in his latest blog entry, he puts forward a compelling legal argument as to why he believes that the video provides sufficient evidence to secure a conviction, and that he “can think of no possible informed basis upon which anybody could doubt the admissibility of that evidence.”

The lawyer, who is a regular user of this website, told road.cc: "The evidence that a crime was committed is compelling. The problem may be that the threat is just not treated seriously because the offence was committed in a car and the complaint is from a cyclist.

"We live in a car culture where the misdeeds of motorists are met with a benign
indulgence. Imagine if the threat had been made on the street when the suspect had some other means at his disposal to carry out his threat. I am disappointed that, as so often, aggression and bad driving around cyclists is not being taken as seriously as it should."

Clearly, the issue is far from resolved and we’ll bring you further updates as and when we have them.

In the meantime, perhaps the most worrying aspect of the episode from a cyclist’s point of view is that if a senior lawyer with a quarter of a century’s experience at the bar has this much trouble getting the police and CPS to treat an incident seriously, what hope is there for the rest of us?
 

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.

Add new comment

38 comments

Avatar
Londonneur replied to innocent_and_proven_so _by_police | 13 years ago
0 likes
innocent_and_proven_so _by_police wrote:

At the lights at the end of the clip, yes i did 'admit' to 'threatening to kill' him, but just to shut the guy up, he was a total idiot and i NEVER threatened to kill him.

Reading this and watching the unedited video, what becomes clear is that it is you who are a "total idiot". It is beyond me as to why you have not been prosecuted for your behavior.

Avatar
skippy | 13 years ago
0 likes

Copy of the comment left on Cyclingsilk comments :

Obviously the miscreant causing the video to be forwarded to the police & cps doesn't think he needs a lawyer !

" "Need a lawyer? My tips here" post is totally unnecessary when the "police" decide that video evidence in Thames Valley should be disregarded and in Manchester is used as the basis to ask Public Assistance !

Your letter to Theresa May also appears to have been treated with disdain !

More and more it is becoming evident that the Police are "highway robbers" , only available as revenue collectors and unable to assist the Vunerable in the community whether they have been burgled or assaulted or tangled up in a road rage situation .

Touch someone's window or panelwork and you risk going to jail but be the victim of physical or verbal abuse and you become the victim of some money grubbing hooligan !

Voelcker's review should be compulsory reading for the legal profession as well as those members of the Police force who care to do a day's work .

That peasant that replied to roads.cc either is giving us all the finger or the police which is even worse !

Incompetence by those police officers who interviewed him reflects on ALL their colleagues since it is obvious to a child that he has strung together a fiction ! " An adult would be aware that they were being treated with contempt but the interviewing police officers must have been having a "bad hair day" !

Avatar
cyclinglawyer | 12 years ago
0 likes

The trial is Monday week (28th November).

Avatar
hairyairey | 11 years ago
0 likes

I see that the miscreant was convicted:

http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/scott-lomas-convicted-and-s...

Astonishing behaviour, I've been driven into deliberately I just had not recorded at the time. I am more and more convinced that I should get a camera.

Avatar
OldRidgeback | 11 years ago
0 likes

I hope the Cycling Silk won't mind my breaking of his copyright but I thought this point he made in his blog was particularly important:

"Today Lomas was finally convicted, on his plea of guilty, to the Public Order Act offence of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress.

It transpires Lomas was in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed by the Crown Court in April 2010 following his conviction of a crime of violence, malicious wounding, He was not referred back to the Crown Court for consideration of whether to activate that earlier sentence."

In other words, the miscreant pleaded guilty despite his earlier post on this thread saying that he wasn't. And the person also has previous form for his anti-social behaviour. I think those two points sum up the whole incident. I've also been thinking of getting a camera, especially since the recent incident when a guy in a car began driving closer and closer to the rear of my motorbike in an attempt to scare me.

Avatar
SideBurn | 11 years ago
1 like

The bit about the suspended sentance not considered just annoys me; what is the point of a suspended sentance?

Avatar
Stumps | 11 years ago
0 likes

My comment has nothing to do with this article but i feel i have to respond to the comment by TiNuts who wrote

"Pretty galling as it's our money which is being used to prop up their increasingly fat pension fund.

I pay into my pension, the sum of £350.00 every 4 weeks multiply that by 13 payments a year for 30 years gives a figure of £136500 i have paid in, no small amount from my own pocket and i was wondering how much you have personally paid into my pension ?????.

The money you pay in council tax goes to the running of the Police forces not our pensions.

On behalf of Officers who do care about their job and the people they serve i apologise to those who feel they dont get a good service.

Avatar
severs1966 replied to BUD | 7 years ago
1 like

BUD wrote:

Plod... are only too aware of the pointless exercise of preparing a case for prosecution only to find that a smug,overpaid QC "puts forward a compelling legal argument" which persuades a Jury that the driver was the victim and the cyclist should have been wearing bright clothing and a helmet.....oh and there was no authorisation to film the poor driver which makes it an infringement on his human rights and should be compensated.

Is this the reason why Plod decides, unilaterally, to withhold nearly all cases from the CPS where the victim is on a bicycle? or is that just a mysterious, inexplicable coincidence?

Usually, they don't "prepare a case" because usually, they decided not to investigate it in the first place, something that Plod appears to be at liberty to decide to (not) do. Why investigate when a "smug QC" is going to trample all over their efforts? Far better to just ignore the offence, after all, it's ONLY a cyclist.

Pages

Latest Comments