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Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgLondon cabbie accused of ‘using car as weapon’ cleared
A London black cab driver who was accused of using his car as a weapon during a road rage attack has been cleared by a jury at the Old Bailey, reports the London Evening Standard. Daniel Wentworth collided with James Williams shortly after the cyclist made a hand gesture at him and had been accused of deliberately ramming him.
CCTV footage showed Wentworth pulling out suddenly as he tried to turn into Lower Thames Street at about 7.30pm on January 9 last year. In so doing, he blocked the bike lane and forced the cyclist to swerve around him.
Willliams was then seen making a hand gesture. Prosecutor William Gatward told the court that Wentworth had become enraged at this and had followed before ramming him. Wentworth said he had intended to pull alongside Mr Williams to speak to him and "calm the situation" because he didn't know what was going on.
Earlier today, a London van driver who knocked a woman off her bike shortly after she gave him a V-sign was found guilty of careless driving. Dennis Baker, who spoke 'disparagingly' about cyclists in interview, veered into Alison Kempster as she set off from traffic lights shortly after beeping his horn at her. Kempster believed that he had done it deliberately.
When stopped by a motorcyclist and told that he had knocked a cyclist off her bike, Baker said: "Really, did I? Did she not run into me?" He claimed that while he heard a bang, he assumed he had driven over a manhole cover.
Baker was fined £550, ordered to pay £1,000 compensation, £1,550 in court costs and was given five points on his driving licence. He was cleared of the more serious charge of dangerous driving.
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.
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28 comments
Is the driver still allowed to drive a taxi after a careless conviction?
I gather that the desired conviction wasn't achieved but there was a conviction. Now, if he is able to continue in his job, do you think he will be so willing to engage in any form of behaviour which have him up in front of a crown court judge again? I believe he will be extremely wary and the level of publicity will make other taxi drivers think a little about their driving standards
jury.. ha. more like a popularity contest..
anyone driving like a twat should get a d-bar throught the windscreen t take em off the road..
don't you get it? cars cars cars cars, everything for cars, all for cars, all manpower , all fuel all all all all... courts? what courts? have you seen them going to their jobs? with their massive SUVs ALL OF THEM! did you know that most four wheel junkies believe bikes are for children and playgrounds, and if used by adults it means they are poor and cannot aford a car? that is all about, massive fortresses on four wheels that burn fuel. I have said before, if cycling was consuming the black gold, things would be diferent...
That's fascinating. All people going to work in the courts drive SUVs? I know my touring bike takes up a lot of space once I have my panniers loaded with laptop, suit, robes, law books etc, but "SUV" seems like a harsh description.
Among my non-cycling colleagues, small hatchbacks are the most common choice. But that's just based on 12 years working in courts. I'm sure you're right really.
Another example of our wonderful justice system in action then.
Fact: If that cabbie had cut a motorist up and gotten the finger he'd have cursed back under his breath and got on with his day.
As he feels entitled to use the road however he likes he took offence that a cyclist, who has no right to get in his way of course, had the audacity to object to having him put their wellbeing at risk.
So, instead in a fit of self righteousness he pursued the other party and in so doing knocked them off.
Contrast this: If you're attacked you're allowed to use reasonable force to protect yourself. If however the attacker runs off and you set off after them and hurt them it goes from permitted self defence to assault.
So, in setting off in a weapon to 'talk' and then causing harm it is assault at best.
Asking the common jury to be impartial in such cases is like asking a paedophile group to responsibly monitor and run the sex offenders register.
Cyclists are a group heavily discriminated against by motorists who fail to understand why others should possibly object to being seriously hurt and killed for no good reason.
Right. Because road rage never happens between two car drivers. Just never happens. Ever. Fact.
So when was the last time you heard of a driver injuring another driver by somehow knocking him off of his car?
If the other party is encased in a fast-moving armoured box there's usually nothing you can do but curse under your breath and get on with your day.
Road rage between drivers happens far less often because it requires both parties to be willing and able to stop and get out of their vehicles. Usually they can't even hear each other.
Edit - though, granted, as with most things, they do it differently in the US , as googling 'road rage shooting' (out of curiosity) confirms.
Last time I heard of a driver injuring another driver by ramming his car in a road rage incident? November, I think. Last time I heard of an angry driver chasing another driver and killing somebody (admittedly not the person he was chasing but somebody unconnected driving the other way) was about 8-9 months ago. Road rage incidents involving one driver chasing another and deliberately cutting him up, throwing things at his car etc? Maybe 3-4 per year.
This is just the ones that I personally have seen in my practice, you understand. And I cover a very small proportion of the Crown Court cases in one county.
Hopefully ubur will meter out justice to this black cab driver and all the rest of them. I dream of a world where the streets of Essex are littered with homeless, out of work black cab drivers.
It's good to see the CPS at least trying to bring charges in these cases, but I am in agreement with those who think that the likelihood of jurors being biased against cyclists is going to make it much harder to get convictions of drivers who have used their vehicles as weapons to scare or 'punish' cyclists.
I would compare this to similar situations in places like the Deep South of the United States (at least in the past) where violence against some groups by the privileged majority never seemed to get punished.
It is difficult to know how to move past this point. If people can't feel confident in getting justice from the police or the courts, then they may end up feeling the need to sort things out themselves directly.
This does sound odd and I feel that if I was on that jury I may well have decided differently. However, I wasn't on the jury and was not privy to the evidence, so I think with "trial by jury" you have to trust that most of the time the jury will make the correct decision even if it sounds bizarre.
I think the problem in a case like this is you cant without really clear evidence, prove the cab drivers actual intent in any of it, the nearest they can get to someone independent who witnessed the whole thing, is the cabs passenger who appeared to have backed the cab drivers version of events
so its a surprise the CPS actually proceeded with the charges they had as the bar is set quite high to win over juries for dangerous driving charges, when youd have thought careless driving without due care would have been fairly slam dunk'd in comparison but then it wouldnt have got to the Old Bailey I guess..
Interesting in passing, but, ultimately, nothing to see here. This really is a puff piece, scant evidence in the piece at all. The jury heard it all. And made a conclusion. It all sounds very odd, of course, but whilst a jury might be inherently biased against cycling scum it does appear that they preferred the evidence of the taxi driver. Nothing to see here.
Is that an actual crime - "using a vheicle as a weapon"?
I have just done jury service, and whilst I think it is arguably the best system, I am convinced (from my experience) that whilst very few innocent people get convicted, a huge proportion of guilty bastards get off. All they and the defence have to do is convince one of the 12 jury members that they are not guilty of the crime they are charged with. Not even that, they just have to have reasonable doubt they didn't do it.
The whole case is badly reported. If the prosecution state "Wentworth had become enraged at this and had followed before ramming him" what did the defence have to say about this. What is the evidence of this?
So the cabbie changed his direction of travel to "calm the situation"? Does that make any sense at all? Or did the rider then proceed along the road flicking the Harry Vees indiscriminately and the cabbie thought he'd best diffuse the situation?
Happens to me all the time. People make rude gestures to me, so I chase after them and knock them to the ground from behind. It's not my fault though. I'm just trying to calm the situation. Sorrreeeeee.
Farce. Impossible to talk to someone from a moving car without being dangerously close and also not paying attention to the road ahead. His own words confirm dangerous driving and still the jury aqquit.
I despair.
The application of that principle would have some interesting ramifications for pro team cars...
Trial by jury is not fit for purpose in these circumstances. Most of the jurors will hate cyclists so the chance of a fair trial is the sum total of fuck all.
Like all other justice systems, trial by jury is an imperfect tool. Sometimes the guilty will go free and the innocent will be punished. But, when compared to the alternatives, it's probably the best option.
You say it's not fit for purpose in these circumstances (my italics) but who would decide which cases were for the jury and which were not? Another jury perhaps?
And are you sure, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the man was guilty? Were you there? Were you in court?
If the verdict had been different and the driver was convicted I wonder would you still hold to your belief that the jury was unnecessary.
He knocked the guy down. In a half sensible world we would simply punish drivers who hit cyclists or pedestrians, and not fuss with the jury nonsense.
I'm beginning to think that the trial by jury principle is not a guarantee of justice. Too many potential jurors have axes to grind about either the defendant or victim by dint of their race, religion, class, occupation or even (in our case) by mode of transport. Not to mention the intelligence (or lack thereof) of some jurors.
There are western democracies that manage without trial by jury just fine. Unless it's a serious crime with potentially a life sentence in France a panel of judges examine the evidence and come to a verdict.
There's a good chance that judges would be just a predjudiced. Justice comes from power. Cyclists' organizations need to continue to apply concerted political pressure for changes in sentencing guidelines and in highlighting the dodgy decisions made by the CPS and the police.
I thank those that are currently doing this work. I'm less interested in lobbying efforts going into building experimental cycling networks and road layouts.
Interesting point you make though. I wonder whether there are any comparitive studies of the false conviction and false acquital under the two systems.
True that, like democracy, trial-by-jury is the worst system apart from all the others.
Still doesn't change the fact that if society has a prevailing prejudice or power-imbalance that will be reflected in hte attitude of juries. So when you say 'sometimes the guilty will go free...etc' you are understating the problem, in that the point is that such errors are not solely random, they follow a general pattern.
And I still think it might be slightly improved were there a form of vetting, so that at least such trials don't have a jury over-full of people who mostly see the world through the windscreen of a motorised vehicle. They could at least exclude anyone who has a history of motoring offenses, for example.
But changing the infrastructure is the only real answer. People are always going to be flawed.
True I'm afraid. Not that jurors hate cyclists, but empathy is engendered from common experience, and with a little over 2% of regular road users being cyclists, the mathematical odds weigh overwhelmingly in favour of juror empathy lying with the motorist.
The only chance cyclists can have of a fair trial is if it's a non-jury trial where the judge declares disinterest, and the case is judged on it's legal merits.
These cases need jurors made up of people who cycle AND drive or do neither, but not either one alone.