No charges for lorry driver involved in Bank Junction cyclist death

The driver of the lorry involved in the death of cyclist Ying Tao at Bank junction in the City of London will not be charged in connection with the incident last June.

According to the London Evening Standard, the City of London Police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided after a six-month review that there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

Specifically, they concluded that the standard of driving had not fallen below that of a “competent and careful driver” required in a charge of causing death by careless driving.

They also established that the lorry had no defects at the time of the fatal crash.

A spokeswoman for the City of London Police told the newspaper: “The investigation has come to a conclusion, with no further action to be taken.”

Ms Tao, originally from China and a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge universities had been cycling her work at PricewaterhouseCoopers when she was struck by the left-turning lorry.

The 26-year-old had recently celebrated her first wedding anniversary and her husband Jin Chan Zho said: “She was the perfect wife and perfect in every way. She was smart as well as beautiful.”

Following her death, both the London Cycling Campaign and Stop Killing Cyclists organised vigils at the junction, which the City of London Corporation now plans to bar to all motor vehicles other than buses between 7am and 7pm.

> Cycle safety protests at Bank

Unveiling the proposals last November, Michael Welbank, who chairs the Corporation’s Planning & Transportation Committee, said: “Bank Junction is dysfunctional, dangerous, dirty, congested, and polluting” and that it was “completely inappropriate to form the heart of a modern city.”

> Radical overhaul of Bank Junction planned

Donnachadh McCarthy, co-founder of Stop Killing Cyclists, told the Standard: “We are disappointed at a lack of prosecution.

“We are, however, pleased that the corporation is responding positively to the call – after the huge protest following the awful death of Ying Tao – that Bank junction be made into a safe space at the heart of the City for cyclists and pedestrians.”