A drunk cyclist who knocked over a pensioner while riding a bike with no brakes on a platform on Leicester railway station has been jailed for six months after admitting inflicting grevious bodily harm.
The victim, who was aged in his 70s and had recently had hip replacement surgery, broke his thighbone and needed a metal plate and 10 screws to be inserted, reports the Leicester Mercury.
He spent two weeks in hospital and several months unable to leave his house following the incident, forcing the couple to cancel a planned walking holiday and trip to Paris.
They had just got off a train from London, where they had been to celebrate her 78th birthday, when the incident happened on the evening of 4 March 2017.
Leicester Crown Court heard that Philip Cox, 22, who worked as a kitchen assistant, had tried to grab a pole to stop his bike but instead hit the victim, causing him to fall.
Samuel Coe, told the court: “The complainant got off the train at 9.30pm and his wife was walking ahead of him, on platform two, towards the exit stairs.
“After seeing a man and a bicycle he suddenly felt a heavy blow on the left shoulder, causing him to spin around and fall heavily on the floor, landing on his left hip.
“It was so unexpected he didn’t have time to put his hands out to cushion his fall.
“It wasn’t busy on the platform and there was plenty of room to avoid him.”
Cox, from Ruddington in Nottingham, apologised and explained that he had been drinking and was stopped by a police officer as he rode further down the platform.
The victim was taken to hospital by taxi two hours later after an ambulance failed to arrive.
Speaking in mitigation on behalf of Cox, Sukhdev Bisla said: “He accepts it was completely reckless and careless and he shouldn’t have ridden his bicycle on the platform.
“He’d consumed alcohol and accepts it was very stupid and foolish.”
Sentencing Cox, Judge Robert Brown said: “This was ignorant and inconsiderate behaviour.
“You shouldn’t have been riding your bike on the platform.
“The potential for an accident created an obvious risk.
“You were drunk and distracted by a shout from someone.
“You didn’t have any brakes on your bike and didn’t see this elderly man until the last second.
“The consequences for the victim were serious, not just because of the injury, but the ongoing inconvenience of treatment and although he’s robust, it affected his confidence.
“I accept you didn’t deliberately ride your bike at him or intend to hurt him and that you are remorseful.”
It is not clear from the reporting of the case whether Cox’s bicycle as a fixed-wheel bike with no front brake, of the type that London cyclist Charlie Alliston had been riding when he collided with pedestrian Kim Briggs in February 2016, or some other type of bike with no functioning brakes.
Mrs Briggs died in hospital from her injuries and while Alliston was cleared by an Old Bailey jury last year of manslaughter, he was convicted of causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving and was sentenced to 18 months’ detention in a young offenders’ institution.
> London fixed wheel cyclist Charlie Alliston sentenced to 18 months in young offenders’ institution
18 thoughts on “Six months’ jail for drunk cyclist who crashed into pensioner while riding bike with no brakes”
Now let’s compare this to the
Now let’s compare this to the cyclist killed by a drunk motorist who also fled the scene outside of Leicester station who didn’t who didn’t go to prison.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/taxi-driver-who-played-part-620003.amp
Housecathst wrote:
Absolutely, the disparity in how people on bikes are prosecuted/charged is riduculous, I can only hope that those involved in the recent meetings with the big wigs have correlated all of this and shown it to those wanting to enforce change/more crap thrown at people on bikes and be told that we are already discriminated against/have rules/laws applied differently (& substantially so) both as the victim and when on the other side of the dock.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
You know how the “safety review” that’s coming out of the Alliston case is because wanton and furious cycling is a law from like 1880 and therefore clearly out of date? Well, GBH comes out of the offences against the person act 1861,, so it’s even older… Go figure…
Housecathst wrote:
Absolutely this!!!
I do not condone the cyclist, as much as I don’t condone the motorist but suspended sentence for a drunk, chronic alcoholic van driver, who left the scene outside the station, after killing a cyclist. Vs. a drunk cyclist who rode a bike, which had no brakes, injuring a pedestrian inside the station, receives a custodial sentence seems grossly unfair.
Both remorseful, both attempted to leave the scene, although the cyclist did acknowledge his victim and apologise, but the cyclist gets the harsher sentence.
http://road.cc/content/news/219264-suspended-sentence-van-driver-who-killed-cyclist-sam-boulton-after-taxi
lllnorrislll wrote:
Now let’s compare this to the cyclist killed by a drunk motorist who also fled the scene outside of Leicester station who didn’t who didn’t go to prison.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/taxi-driver-who-played-part-620003.amp— lllnorrislll
Absolutely this!!! I do not condone the cyclist, as much as I don’t condone the motorist but suspended sentence for a drunk, chronic alcoholic van driver, who left the scene outside the station, after killing a cyclist. Vs. a drunk cyclist who rode a bike, which had no brakes, injuring a pedestrian inside the station, receives a custodial sentence seems grossly unfair. Both remorseful, both attempted to leave the scene, although the cyclist did acknowledge his victim and apologise, but the cyclist gets the harsher sentence. http://road.cc/content/news/219264-suspended-sentence-van-driver-who-killed-cyclist-sam-boulton-after-taxi— Housecathst
Talk about being economical with the truth!
The van driver didn’t go to jail because he wasn’t found to have directly caused the death of the cyclist – the reason being that it was the action of the taxi passenger opening their door that pushed the cyclist into the path of the van and the outcome wasn’t deemed to have been any different if he’d been sober.
I’m not condoning the actions/sentence of the van driver, but both of you are rather comparing apples with oranges here.
If you want to pick a fight with the sentencing, then you could start with the £80 fine for the taxi passenger that opened her door and caused the incident in the first place.
LastBoyScout wrote:
Could they give me the Euromillions numbers?
alansmurphy wrote:
So a bit like the charlie alliston case, were the lack of a front brake was found to be immaterial and therefore acquitted for manslaughter. thankfully (for the baying mob) they could fall back on W&F and the cyclist gets 18months.
What an absolute arse.
What an absolute arse.
It does make me despair that courts don’t treat all arses equaly regardless of the form of transport that they were attempting to use.
A deserved sentence. Drunk,
A deserved sentence. Drunk, unroadworthy and fucked someone’s life up. Fuck him.
Case for riding bike would be
Case for riding bike would be prosecuted under railway bylaw (14?) This prosecution founded on laws applicable to causing harm.
It seems highly unlikely that he was riding a fixed wheel bike 1) drunk 2) unable to stop without grabbing a pole…
Surely that’s careless
Surely that’s careless driving.
Was the victim wearing high visibility, a helmet and did their luggage have lights?
Why do you feel you have to
Why do you feel you have to drag the Charlie Alliston case in when they are completely different situations and, as you say, there is absolutely nothing currently suggesting anything about a fixed wheel bike in this case?
Sadly the cyclist was
Sadly the cyclist was probably single, didnt start fake crying with remorse, didnt have a wife/kids to support,doesnt need his bike for work which, if he did, would force him to lose his job and not be able to pay his morgage etc…so instead we’ll just shaft the f@ck out of him and send him to jail. Compounding the severity of the incident for this poor biker (or one could possibly argue making it an incident in the first instance) was the fact that the chap he happened to hit of all possible individuals was a doddery old man who doesnt have the physical capacity to react to falls in the same way as the vast majority of the population would. He didnt put his hands down to cushion the blow. The doddery old man then proceeded to land on his hip, which as fate would also have it had recently undergone a surgical replacement procedure and was no doubt severely more infirm than it would otherwise have been. What if the guy was a haemopheliac and the cyclist accidentally brushed past and cut his hand and the chap bled to death? Maybe if the ambulance turned up the victims injuries would have had less of an impact on his life? Anyways, on a relative basis IMHO the accused can rightly feel shafted.
the nutcracker wrote:
I don’t half shitpost but you’ve got me beat hands down here.
The ‘cyclist’ got what he deserved, it’s just a pity that justice is totally skewed and a lot of people don’t get what they deserve.
Sadly anyone can get on a bike and become a ‘cyclist’, it doesn’t transform you into a the road using equivalent of a saint. A bit like getting in a car doesn’t transform you into a nazi. The sort of person that cycles drunk with no brakes is the sort of person that drives their car drunk with shit brakes.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
This has me perplexed… on one level, the chap got what he deserved. He was drunk, riding an unroadworthy bike in a place where he was not legally able to do so.
Bang to rights as the saying goes.
but then…
What he was guilty of was riding an unroadworthy bike where he shouldn’t have. Now he’s in jail for six months.
What he was foolish about was admitting that he was drunk and pleading guilty to the assault charge.
Six months jail, no suspension, seems a bit harsh compared to other cases out there.
And thats my conundrum.
I want to say, let this be a lesson to all, ignore the law and endure the punishment… but I can’t.
Because… its not the same for all.
I’d love to have the stats on the % of cycling related incidents ending in a prison sentence compared to other modes of transport. My gut is that its skewed to fuck.
I want this sentence to be a fair and reflective representation of justice, but it appears to be a rare case of justice being issued to one user group.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
Seems like he got a normal sentence when considered in the context of people outside of cars. An aggressive pedestrian who violently ran into or shoved an elderly person with similar results would probably have gotten the same penalty.
As you say, the only problem is it again highlights the soft treatment you get if you behave like this while in a motorised metal box.
Quote:
I’ve got to be honest that I had just assumed he was on a supermarket-style MTB with disconnected v-brakes…
brooksby wrote:
I’ve got to be honest that I had just assumed he was on a supermarket-style MTB with disconnected v-brakes…
Me too, I assumed that if it had a back pedal type brake that the cyclist wouldn’t have attempted grab a pole to try and stop himself.
This cyclist got everything that he deserved, any one of the three things he did (Drunk Cycling, Cycling without Brakes, Cycling on a Railway Platform) are stupid. Doing all three of the things at the same time is just on a whole different level of stupidity!
It’s just a shame that drivers doing acts of equal (and worse) stupidity do not get the sentances that they deserve.