James Lawley, from Heysham, was riding a racing tricycle on Oxcliffe Road in Heaton-with-Oxcliffe on Saturday, 21 September 2024, when he was hit by two motorists – one dangerously distracted by their phone, the other failing to stop – and fatally injured.
A black Seat Altea driven by Matthew Isherwood made the initial impact, causing Mr Lawley to fall from his tricycle into the road. The driver of a silver Mercedes C200, Kevin Dawson, then struck Lawley before driving off.
At Preston Crown Court, Isherwood, 28, of Morecambe, admitted causing death by dangerous driving and was sentenced to five years and two months in prison. He was also disqualified from driving for seven years and seven months.
A detailed investigation by Lancashire Police, involving collision reconstruction and digital forensic analysis, found Isherwood had been using his mobile phone repeatedly during a short four-minute journey before the crash.
Police said he sent and received Snapchat messages, viewed content on Instagram, and took a selfie while driving, with activity continuing up to moments before the collision. He also sent a message shortly afterwards saying: “I’ve just hit someone.”
Police said that dangerous distraction led to Isherwood striking Mr Lawley as he rode along Oxcliffe Road. Isherwood was arrested on the scene.
The Mercedes driver, Kevin Dawson, 64, also of Morecambe, admitted causing death by careless driving and was given an eight-month suspended sentence.
He told officers he believed he had hit debris in the road and did not realise he had struck a person, so he did not stop at the scene. He was later intercepted on the Bay Gateway and arrested.
Detective Sergeant Matt Davidson said: “Here I find myself leading yet another investigation into the death of a person caused by a driver using their mobile phone whilst driving.
“The dangers of doing so couldn’t be clearer, yet we still find motorists who take unnecessary and unlawful risks behind the wheel, which can, and do, lead to devastating consequences.
“Kevin Dawson’s actions also played a significant part in the death of James Lawley.
“Other vehicles ahead of him negotiated around James as he lay in the road, but due to his inattention behind the wheel, Dawson did not. The poor standard of his driving was further demonstrated by his lack of recognition of what had occurred as he left the scene.
“James Lawley was a lifelong cyclist and a member of many prominent northwest cycling clubs. At the time of the collision, he was riding to marshal at a cycle race in Hampson Green.
“But instead, as a result of these two collisions, James very sadly lost his life. While no sentence will ever be enough to make up for the loss, I welcome the fact that Isherwood and Dawson have been held accountable for their actions on that tragic morning.
“My hope is that this case serves as a clear reminder of the fatal consequences of using a mobile phone at the wheel, as well as the dangers of careless and dangerous driving, and the lasting impact these decisions can have.” can have on all people involved.”
13 thoughts on “Phone driver who took selfie, watched videos, and sent messages before killing cyclist jailed for five years, as hit-and-run motorist who also struck rider handed suspended sentence”
“Other vehicles ahead of him negotiated around James as he lay in the road, but due to his inattention behind the wheel, Dawson did not.”
So Not only was he knocked off his bike and then ran over by another driver, little is really mentioned at the fact many other drivers just carried on and moved around a person in the road. WTF is wrong with people? Had even one of these stopped to help he may still be alive today. Shame on all who just carried on by.
@Smoggysteve
“Other vehicles ahead of him negotiated around James as he lay in the road…”
Tragic case and shamefully lenient sentences.
But as usual, the (incorrect) language here indicates it was the vehicles doing it rather than human drivers.
Why can’t there be lifelong driving bans?
@willing take your pick…:
“driving is a perfectly normal activity and nobody sets out to cause injury so we shouldn’t over-punish what are accidents / at worst minor training issues”
“must leave room for rehabilitation / if the punishment is too harsh drivers will ignore the ban”
“driving is so essential to people’s normal lives that a (long) ban is cruel and unusual punishment (on the scale of amputations)”
“others may depend on the driver driving – it’s unfair to punish them” / “society would be punishing itself with lifetime bans because that has an economic cost to all”
Alas it’s moot currently because I believe (don’t have figures) that the detection rate for driving while banned is extremely low *, and the punishment appears to be negligible.
* The cases we do hear about are often people who are so out of control they’re detected through dithery very obvious awful driving…
@willing there are, but ironically they tend to be for people who were already banned. apparently making something illegal isn’t actually a deterrent.
https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/man-61-who-caused-collision-on-a9-jailed-for-8-months-436962/
“Other vehicles ahead of him negotiated around James as he lay in the road”
This seems to be expressing approval for their good driving, not horror at their lack of concern for an injured person.
@adamrice I’m not sure we can conclude that no concern was shown, the officer’s language is somewhat ambiguous. “Negotiated” may mean that two or three cars driving behind Isherwood at the same speed managed to swerve around Mr.Lawley in the immediate aftermath of the collision but Dawson, because he wasn’t paying attention, didn’t. Can’t say for certain but the above scenario seems more likely than that other drivers were carefully driving round the victim and Dawson just went straight on into him.
Detective Sergeant Matt Davidson said: “Here I find myself leading yet another investigation into the death of a person caused by a driver using their mobile phone whilst driving
LancsFilth, the supreme anti-cyclist force, are quite happy to wait until somebody is killed by a ‘phone driver’, but are not interested in phone drivers who happen to fail to KSI a cyclist. This one was reported to OpSnap Lancs. and Wyre Neighbourhood Policing Team- no response from either (expletive warning)
ttps://upride.cc/incident/hk21rxt_focus_dangerousdriving/
I have shown this before – it happened on a mini-roundabout directly outside Garstang Police Station and the driver just charged straight at me when I was on the roundabout long before her. Some people have suggested she’s holding a vape rather than a phone but it looks like a small phone held within the hand to me- possibly she keeps it in the car specially for phone driving. I had the accurate time and this is typical distracted phone-driving. There was certainly enough evidence for them to obtain phone records. Naturally, the b******s didn’t
@wtjs The offending phone?
The effort and man hours that must have gone into this investigation must be considerable but it seems to me that many police forces are not prepared to put in a minimal amount of effort to act on footage of careless and dangerous driving submitted by cyclists in order to create a deterrent to this driving behaviour which at some point will get through to drivers like this.
Then we have the recurring issue of hit and run and another lame excuse of thinking that they had hit “debris”. Rather than taking this as incompetent driving it is accepted as an excuse for not stopping after killing someone. It is about time we had an offence of not stopping to assist an injured person as in some other jurisdictions in which case the drivers who drove around the cyclist and carried on would be culpable as well.
Overall a very sad indictment of our current laws and enforcement when it comes to road crime. How long will our polititians allow this sorry state to continue?
This is an appalling case. It begs the question as to why either of these drivers should be allowed behind the wheel ever again. And the five year sentence for the first driver isn’t really long enough.
There really should be more crackdowns on phone use as the danger is well established by now. The six points and £200 fine for drivers who are caught should be effective but I think an instant one month ban as well as those would be a good thing as it would show drivers what they stand to lose.
All good and I agree with the drift but how does this actually work in an effective way? Phone use is *endemic* – because so many people simply don’t see the issue with “just looked at my phone for a second” and we are all being *actively trained* to do this by the app sellers!
In theory app, phone and vehicle purveyors could work together to help dissuade this, but the current system suits all and everyone can say “but we put a warning on our product and certainly don’t force anyone to do anything illegal…” and point at the others.
How do we change behaviour? It seems unlikely we can catch enough drivers with phones in their hands to do that (not because it’s hard to spot, just having enough people to collect and process the evidence).
If we sort that out we then have another constraint – making it stick. If a small fraction of those say “wasn’t me, see you in court”, as others note ATM the process is slow AND very expensive.
Also given costs and limitations of road policing currently how would driving bans help? They’re also minimally policed, and with little effective punishment?