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news
Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Off-duty policeman found guilty of dangerous driving following incident with cyclist
An off-duty police officer has been convicted of dangerous driving following an incident in which he mounted the pavement causing a cyclist to fall off his bike. Ipswich police constable, William Ormsby, was however acquitted of assaulting cyclist Ben Fosdike in the ensuing altercation.
The Ipswich Star reports that Ormsby was disqualified from driving for 15 months and fined £750 for what John Morgans, prosecuting, described as “a typical road rage example of dangerous driving.” He must also pay £1,000 towards prosecution costs and £75 to the victims’ fund, plus £383.48 compensation to Fosdike whose bike was damaged in the incident.
On February 14, 2014, Ormsby was driving along Norwich Road at around 2.15pm in a Nissan Micra with a female passenger. Fosdike, a chef, was cycling ahead of him on his way home from work. After two fire engines passed with sirens on, Ormsby was said to have passed Fosdike within touching distance. Fosdike hit the wing mirror of the Micra to draw attention to this.
The car then mounted the kerb and Fosdike, on his bike, collided with it. Ormsby, who said he was shaken and trying to pull over, claimed that he ended up on the pavement after pressing the accelerator of the Micra due to being unfamiliar with driving an automatic.
The prosecution said that at this point Ormsby got out of the vehicle before being verbally aggressive to Fosdike. Both men admitted pushing each other, before Fosdike said he would let police deal with the matter. Ormsby returned to his car, drove around 100 yards down the road, and also phoned the police.
A Suffolk Police spokesman told the BBC: "Following the conviction, Suffolk Constabulary's Professional Standards Department will look at what additional action may now be taken. The public rightly expects the highest standards from our officers, who should act with integrity and professionalism at all times."
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- Benthic 1 sec ago
The thing is, motorists' killing grounds are not limited to schools, hospitals and nurseries and their environs.
- Benthic 2 min 45 sec ago
Highway Code rule 237 If you are dazzled by bright sunlight, slow down and if necessary, stop.
- Benthic 5 min 10 sec ago
'Suitable advice' can already be found in the Highway Code.
- AidanR 8 min 27 sec ago
Fair point, although I have seen drivers go around other cars which he are stationary at the lights to jump a red!
- Secret_squirrel 47 min 56 sec ago
Im betting these come out of the same factory as the SG and the Grip grab gloves. Identical apart from the Silicon overlay....
- Steve K 53 min 11 sec ago
Oh, and for long rides (100 miles ish) a whole pack of fig rolls and a couple of jam sandwiches normally does my fuelling.
- stonojnr 1 hour 4 min ago
That "old lane" as you call it, is 1) very much open, some misguided cyclists still use it. I used it once, vowed never to again and I block ride...
- Owd Big 'Ead 1 hour 19 min ago
Indeed....
- SaveTheWail 3 hours 21 min ago
"Although other neighbours were outside, nobody else had thought to alert her mum and siblings because there was no car on the drive so they didn’t...
- Tech Noir 3 hours 57 min ago
"Aldi apologised for the blocked bike racks and said "we have spoken with the store to make sure that the cycle bays are clear for use at all times...
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16 comments
"he ended up on the pavement after pressing the accelerator [...] due to being unfamiliar with driving an automatic"
If only accelerator pedals were fitted to cars with manual gearboxes. Perhaps the poor diddums should sue Nissan for their hopelessly unsafe car designs?
"Suffolk Constabulary [...] will look at what additional action may now be taken"
I predict this will end up being "no action". Cops don't care when non-cops run bike riders over, so why would they suddenly start caring when one of their own number does it?
SideBurn - what do you do for a living ?.
Dont get me wrong we have different levels of Police driving and i've put them below as a lot of people will think we are all the same.
We have 4 levels of drivers.
1: standard drivers who are not allowed to use blue lights and sirens.
2: blues and twos, those who can use blue lights and sirens but only for emergency calls and not for pursuits.
3: IPP - pursuit trained drivers.
4: adavanced drivers - such as motor patrols and firearms who are highly trained in pursuit etc.
What a ridiculous system! I wonder how many times a felon cant be pursued because the officer in the nearest vehicle has not passed the appropriate driving course?
I'm not sticking up for him here because he's been a cock and deserves everything he gets imho but just because he's done a Police driving course in the past does not make him a better driver.
I did mine over 25 years ago and unless you have a prang you dont get retested. My force has started bringing in a new system whereby every couple of years you have to do a 2 day assessment course to see if your driving is upto standard and if you fail you have your driving authority removed and you have to do the full 2 week course again but i've been in cars whereby cops slip back into bad habits just like normal drivers and are no better.
Personally i hate automatics and will never drive them.
That is interesting; I get a one day assessment once a year. Fail and you get a training day, fail this and you are down the road. And; all our new vehicles are automatics
But they all are now V6's 
And have cameras front, rear and sides.....
You would have thought that the Police would be more fastidious than us?
But STILL some of our drivers are a bit wayward shall we say...
He'll probably get sacked or final warning. If he's a substantive Bobby with more than a few months service he will be a trained Police driver, possibly even to advanced level depending on his role.
That makes him a better driver than most competent drivers and most of us, so the excuse he used is pathetic.
Moment of red mist that should not have happened, his resolve and duty of care has to be so much higher than Joe public and my guess is he knows it.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I find it quite easy to distinguish between the accelerator and the brake, and as far as I'm aware they don't swap them arround when they fit an automatic gearbox.... if he was bing done for brake testing someone then it might be a fari defence to say I pressed the cluch forgetting its and auto and slammed the brakes on... but accelerator really? and you are a copper?
whilst I agree in this case the jury clearly didnt feel it passed the plausability test, it is actually a surprisingly common cause of car crashes. Whenever youve read about a car crashing into row of shops,houses,swimming pools etc invariably the car will have been an automatic, and the driver has hit the accelerator and not the brake by mistake,though usually theyve started off being parked, and panicked when the car started moving, which didnt really apply here.
Odds on he will get asked to resign or face the charge of bringing the force into disrepute.
Yet another example of a member of the filth acting like a thug. He should be in prison.
Cock
if it's anything like my local force not much. The local Chief Constable was forced to re-instate a copper sacked for drunk driving because of a technicality...
He plainly hadn't thought his defence through, edit.
Serves you right, Idiot.
I hope he gets sacked, honestly f##k him.
Given the outcome, I can only assume the jury believed his was lying in the witness box and do we really need a police officer like that. Having said that he'd fit right in at the MET