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news
Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Road rage footballer who admitted assaulting cyclist avoids jail and driving ban
A former Premier League footballer who pleaded guilty to assaulting a cyclist in a road rage attack, leaving him with a broken wrist, has been given a suspended sentence but has escaped a driving ban.
Jamaica international defender Nyron Nosworthy, who spent five years at Sunderland and now plays for Championship side Watford, was also ordered by Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court to pay the victim £3,300 in compensation.
Nosworthy, aged 33, was driving in London on 13 August last year when he was involved in a collision with cyclist Joe Minihane at a set of traffic lights on Westminster Bridge Road, reports the Watford Observer.
Last week, he admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which resulted in Mr Minihane needing a full cast to be put on his arm and facing the prospect of a year's rehabilitation.
Theo Addae, representing the Brixton-born footballer, who was recovering from an Achilles’ tendon injury at the time, recounted how he had been driving to Oxford Circus for an appointment with a physiotherapist.
"He was making his way there, driving down the road, and at traffic lights there was a cyclist intending to go right, but was on the left and cut across the front of Mr Nosworthy's vehicle and a collision occurred."
"He wound down his window to say: 'You cut in front of me,' and the cyclist told him to "F*ck off."
Mr Addae said his client pulled over intending to speak with Mr Nosworthy, who asserted that Nosworthy came up to him in an "aggressive manner."
"At that time verbal abuse was still coming at Mr Nosworthy and he pushed Mr Minihane once only, causing the cyclist to stumble backwards and that stumble caused the injury,” added Mr Addae.
"It was only the unfortunate manner in which the cyclist fell over that caused the injury."
Sentencing him to 42 days’ imprisonment suspended for two years, District Judge Louise Hammond told him: "Road rage offences are regarded by the appeal courts as extremely serious, because of their prevalence on the road and because of the unacceptable nature of them.
"I am of the view that only a custodial sentence is justified, but because of your positive good character, because the injury was not intended and because you pleaded guilty, I'm able to suspend that sentence."
She also accepted a request from not to ban Nosworthy from driving by his lawyer, Theo Addae, who had said: "The impact would be huge i terms of his employment.
"There is a possibility of a loan move. The move will be to the north of the country, and as a result, disqualification would have a huge impact on his employment."
Football players and managers, and the lawyers acting for them, have at times resorted to what to the person in the street may seem unlikely excuses to avoid being banned from driving.
In 2012, Newcastle United defender Danny Simpson dropped a planned appeal against a six-month driving ban. The footballer, now with Queens Park Rangers, had said he was unable to afford a chauffeur, although at the time he was reportedly earning £10,000 a week.
Also in 2012, former Stoke City manager Tony Pulis escaped a driving ban after he claimed that if he were to employ a driver while he himself was disqualified, confidential information such as the club's transfer dealings might be prejudiced.
Pulis had been caught doing 96mph on a stretch of motorway where the speed limit was 60mph.
Citing the business opportunities and jobs that the club's Premier League status brought to the city, his lawyer also argued that "the people of Stoke-on-Trent could suffer if Mr Pulis lost his licence and lost his job."
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.
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43 comments
Am I missing something here?
Surely! If having a driving licence is so essential to your way of life, employment, etc., I would have thought that you would be ever so careful not to do anything that would jeopardise your having one.
Why should the consequences of you being a cock be any less than someone else being a cock?
gb901 - yeah whatever.....
jacknorell - thanks for that, after 27 years off dealing with dross it does blunt the edges a bit, which i sometimes forget and its not until i read comments like yours that i have to remind myself of such, cheers mate its appreciated.
Ironically if the injured cyclist had used a racial epithet against nosworthy no doubt the full force of the law would have been brought down upon him?
Strange that the law today views injury to ones sensitivity more seriously than actual physical harm!
I don't understand why a driving ban isn't applicable just because it would cause inconvenience. Administering justice is suppose to affect the offender isn't it?
It always 'takes 2 to tango', but if the adrenalines up and the insults are flying, this is often where it ends up. Given the choice of backing away (call the police as there was a collision) with a bit of wounded pride, or 'squaring up', getting a broken wrist (could have been a lot worse), a payout with the other bloke prosecuted, I think I'd take the former. No winners here. There's that great line when your in the mood to 'stand your ground', "you may be right....but you'll be dead right". Remember the cyclist who slapped the car and the motorist just chased him down, ran over him and killed him. Actions or response....consequences.
"disqualification would have a huge impact on his employment."
should never be able to use that as a reason for not disqualifying a driver... there's always public transport or the bicycle or taxi or even if rich enough, employing a chauffeur to drive you around...
please please people get a grip, its a broken wrist and no matter who does it or who its against you are never going to get a custodial sentence.
It can never be proven that he deliberately tried to break the wrist as it was a push and as for a years rehab - get real. i had 2 ops on my left knee (the second quite major on the tendons / ligaments) in the space of a month and i was back at work walking normally after 6 months.
That's not really the point though. The driver behaved violently, and a sensible society should not want violent people allowed to drive large metal boxes.
And BTW, i see and deal with violence on a daily basis and this was petty. As for society i think you need to get out and smell the roses....
Yes we are all by now quite aware you're plod...please get over yourself!
You have a f-ing tough job, and I don't envy you one bit. From your writing on here, you seem a very sensible guy doing a horribly difficult gig.
However, as you're so used to being around serious violence and s**t all day, you're not well put to judge how a civilian views violence or a confrontation like this one.
The cyclist (he was possibly/probably a knob) was knocked off, then assaulted by someone who's likely bigger and certainly in better shape. So, person already in shock is then battered. It's not "only" a push, it's coming after a potentially lethal altercation with a large metal box, and done by the driver of said box.
For me, and most other people, that's pretty damn bad.
Less bad than a knife to the stomach, I grant you that, but hardly 'petty' as you dismissingly describe it.
Creep!
As for judging the level of violence - one word - objectivity!
Eh, WTF?
BTW, are you really claiming that if I, an ordinary person rather than a third rate professional soccer player, pushed someone over and injured them in a shop queue, I wouldnt face jail? Really?
Really, yes iam.
I don't see why you find this hard to believe. I seem to recall articles in the press listing examples of people committing violent offenses and only getting cautions. Injuring someone, even in a more deliberate way than this, doesn't automatically lead to a jail term. I don't think the lack of one in this case is due to the guy's high-status job. To be honest I think its a lot more random than that.
I do wonder whether it would work out the same way if someone pushed over a policeman and broke his wrist, or if such a misdeed occurred in the midst of widespread rioting that got middle England all in a tizzy, say. I'm far from convinced its always consistent in every case.
But there's nothing particularly exceptional about not going to jail for an incident like this, whether its a footballer or a bricklayer.
I don't even think its especially cycling or motoring related. The actual offense occurred when both had transformed into pedestrians, after all! Bloody pedestrians, they need to get their house in order.
Seriously, there's no need for him to have intent to specifically break the wrist. He was intentionally violent, which caused a foreseeable harm.
Which specific harm is irrelevant.
With your reasoning, if I intentionally tried to hit you in the knee with a steel pipe, and then connected with the hip instead, there was no criminal intent...
My old man is still having physio on his wrist ten years after breaking it, uniformed or not I wouldn't fancy your chances of anything resembling a polite response if you decided to nip round and tell him to "get real".
Let's be honest here, the police will not have given two fucks about the cyclist and were probably chuffed as buttons that they got to have a footballer grace their presence (hence the giant shoehorning of their insistence of how great he was with their enquiries yada yada). Nosworthy will have had a very pricey legal team representing him, a team pulling out all the stops to ensure the very best result for their client versus the CPS. The CPS probably had someone representing them who just happened to draw the short straw that morning and got lumbered with the case and yet Nosworthy was still guided to plead guilty got handed a suspended sentence and a fine. Much less than any right thinking person would believe he should have got but if the cyclist was in anyway in the wrong Nosworthy's legal team would have had this bounced out of court in seconds.
Funny isn't it, if Nosworthy had responded to somebody swearing at him by breaking their wrist on a football pitch he would have been given a stiffer punishment by the FA.
Instead he pretty much gets away with hitting someone with a car, getting out, abusing them and then assaulting them. Madness.
Aha, sweet FA
My last ride included close passes, high speed close passes, not indicating, overtaking directly towards me on narrow roads, pulling out then slowing down, overtaking then slowing down, side road pull outs without seeing me, pinch point passes, mobile phone obliviousness and a massively close left hook. All in a quick 25 mile spin. All of whom received a hearty "fuck off" and worse, in some cases. Unfortunately, not a one stopped. None ever do.
Violence against the person is rarely justified, but I'd love for one of these big name road rage idiots to come off worse and get a good slapping after coming off as the aggressor. You're within your rights to defend yourself if you feel you're going to be assaulted, as long as it's reasonable, justifiable and proportionate. Don't take any guff from these swine.
Appeal the verdict. It's too lenient.
Yet again another careless driver who has an unnecessary hatred for cyclists and uses their car as a weapon. and £3,300 is nothing compared to what he earns as a footballer!!
Used to have this guy in my fantasy football team back in his Sunderland days, surprisingly useful for a cheap defender.
Didn't realise he was such a knob.
what about the impact on the cyclist,s employment with a broken wrist
It seems a poor show in general. I don't see how a football player needs a driving licence to play. Tony Pulis had a particularly feeble excuse.
No that was a french guy in Macclesfield, this fella is from Brixton. And used to play for Gillingham, which also used to be the home of Marlon king ... of sequel assault infamy. Lovely lot footballers aren't they.
£3300 divided by 18 months pain and rehab comes to £183.33 per month (£45.83 per week) compensation! And how much does Mr Nosworthy get paid as an international and championship footballer?
Mr Minihane's lost earnings alone are? The Magistrate has decided that Mr Minihane is not worth any more than this? Maybe he decided that shouting in the heat of the moment means he's not entitled to a proper 'level of consideration'.
Wasn't this the one that drove off and said 'good luck with tracing me', followed by a bit of a campaign to find the cars driver?
Even if not, less than a weeks wages as a fine is poor...
Stoke City's Steven N'Zonzi, then of Hale, Greater Manchester. Stoke are currently 3 points above the relegation zone in the Premiership. Nosworthy is a [cough] squad player for Watford, mid-table in the Championship.
If Stoke get relegated, and Nosworthy gets a game due to injury of Watford's other central defenders, I could have some very mixed feels about challenges between the two.
Twat on bike cuts across, colliding with car and the driver gets all the shit?
Something wrong here.
Oh, I forgot, this is roadcc, where only saints ride bikes. Get a grip, people.
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