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news
Car keys and drain (copyright John Stevenson)Bolton Abbey car key snatcher gives his version of events
Yesterday Nick Ahad, the BBC radio presenter whose car keys were taken by a cyclist in a road rage incident on Sunday, gave road.cc his side of the story. Today, the cyclist who took his keys gives his version of events.
Signing his email ‘The Phantom Key Snatcher,’ the cyclist told us:
“I am the cyclist who took Nick Ahad’s keys from his car at Bolton Abbey on the morning of Sunday 26th June. This is my side of the story.
“There are three reasons I am telling this story. Firstly, I am actually having a few (though not many) regrets, so this is a cathartic process. Secondly, I feel utterly sorry for the other cyclist who nearly got killed when they were mistaken for me (The Little Onion). Thirdly, Nick Ahad has got away with his version of events, neglecting a few key details.
“I am doing it anonymously for the simple reason that whilst I committed a crime of taking the keys, I prevented a far greater crime of assault. I believe that Nick Ahad is guilty of dangerous driving and possibly attempted assault (if there is such a crime?), and at the time I believed that if I had not taken his keys, he would have committed worse. As I explain below, it was always supposed to be a temporary confiscation. Unfortunately this country is woeful at prosecuting drivers for crimes against cyclists. If I had confidence that Nick Ahad would be charged, let alone punished for his crimes, I would come forwards tomorrow.
“On the morning of the 26th of June, I – like hundreds of other cyclists – was cycling around the Yorkshire Dales with a few mates. It was very pleasant. We turned off the A9 and headed into Bolton Abbey, with the intention of going over to Grassington after a cup of tea and some cake. I had a mechanical at the roundabout so my buddies went up ahead to get a table at the tea shop, so I was left to do the last mile on my own.
“As is usual for this road, I took a position about a metre or so out from the verge. This is to avoid potholes, but also to make yourself visible when the road is winding and has a few dips and rises, and to deter punishment passes. A riding buddy of mine knew Craig Armitage, who was killed by an overtaking car in Bolton Abbey last winter, so I am quite nervous.
“I was not quite in the middle of the lane, and certainly not on the right hand side, let alone veering into the lane of oncoming traffic, as Nick Ahad has alleged on Twitter. I was also holding a steady line, without any wobbling around the place. I think that most cyclists on this site would consider such positioning prudent, sensible and normal in such circumstances. It most certainly was not the crazy swerving all over the place, crossing into the other lane type cycling that Nick Ahad is making out.
“I became aware of a short queue of traffic behind me. This is normal for round there, and generally sensible drivers can wait a few seconds for a clear road to overtake sensibly. I heard some beeping and just ignored it. The road straightened out and a few cars overtook safely and considerately. And then a small black car pulled up alongside me, very close, and the driver started shouting at me with various swearwords and threats.
“I didn’t catch all the details, but it was basically that I should be letting him past. He then started moving left, pushing me off the road. I had to go on to the verge to escape, at which point the driver was also partly on the verge.
“I’ll be fair at this point and say that in retrospect I don’t know whether he was trying deliberately to hurt me, or whether he had just seen an oncoming car and was trying to get back onto the left hand lane. Either it was criminally bad driving, or he was actually trying to hit me deliberately. At the time, it felt very deliberate, particularly when combined with the shouting and ranting. It is a really narrow road, with only room to pass when there is no one else coming.
“I got out and unclipped and went over to the driver. I admit that I was absolutely furious and probably went like an English Alex Ferguson style hairdryer. I was out of control initially, but I calmed down. To be honest, Nick Ahad is quite accurate in that whilst he was initially screaming at me as he overtook me and forced me off the road, and continued to shout at me at the start, he was actually quite calm later on.
“I had a go at him for being stupid and dangerous. The conversation proceeded as you might imagine for about a minute, with him replying that I should have moved over to let him past, and that I should have got out of his way. At this point, I was still convinced that he had deliberately tried to hit me.
“I saw that his keys were in his car. I was genuinely fearful of being on the same roads as him, particularly as he was insisting he had done nothing wrong, and that I should have let him overtake. I knew that people had taken keys from drunk drivers and so on in order to prevent a crime. So, I waited a few seconds till he moved his hands away from the steering wheel, and I grabbed his keys and pedalled off.
“I legged it up towards Grassington. After about 10 minutes of high tempo riding, I turned back and went for a cup of tea at Bolton Abbey with my buddies (Guys, you know who I am. As I said to you, I only wish you were there to have witnessed it and to have provided evidence to the police. Or that you had bought me a GoPro).
“I honestly had the intention of posting the keys to the police. I think the process of having to explain why the keys went missing would have been sufficient. Unfortunately, in the rush to get away, I dropped them after hitting some rough surface a few hundred yards after the incident. So Nick Ahad, if you are reading this, you can go looking for them.
“I bear full responsibility for taking the keys. I would probably do it again in similar circumstances, although I would give them to the police. But I believe this is the lesser crime than being (a) so bad a driver that you end up forcing a cyclist to take to a verge to escape or (b) deliberately driving at a cyclist. I don’t know what Nick Ahad’s intentions were, and whether it was (a) or (b). But I do know that both his car and me ended up on the verge. I am sure witnesses will attest to Nick Ahad’s car being on the verge.
“My regrets are what happed to The Little Onion, and in not sending the keys to the police. I also have some small doubts over whether it was best to take the keys, or just sit there and phone the police. However, given that he was in a car and I on the bike, and that the police don’t care about cyclists, then taking the keys was a better option.
“I hope Nick Ahad drives more considerately in future, and sees cyclists not as an inconvenience causing a few seconds delay, but as vulnerable human beings who have exactly the same rights to use the road as him. And is more honest and open about what actually happened.”
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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54 comments
sounds like two dicks crossing swords...
Sswindells
"Id love to clear up some beliefs that armchair investigators have but alas, it falls on deaf ears. Ultimately it's not as simple as everyone seems to think, pulling up at the side of a cyclist, well they do that in pro racing. Shouting at someone through a window causing him to fear for his life, the mens reas would be to make that cyclist fear for his life. Words and actions. Any solicitor with any legal knowledge would tell their client " say you didn't intend to make him fear for his life ". Now prove he had the intent, prove his actions without any witness was as described. It's just not easy."
Though I can see the point that you are making in terms of legality - let's face it the average driver murdering a cyclist gets off with a 6 month ban - I'm not sure how you could advocate someone driving on the wrong side of the road engaging in a conversation with somebody. And be fair, comparing it to a pro cyclist having a conversation with a team car on a closed road is just silly - even more so when you consider recent clashes with team cars, motos et al.
I'm not trying to be the enemy or on the side of the driver at all. My personal views are there should be more protection for cyclists, after all I've been in my fair few near misses (including one whereby a bus driver ended up being disciplined because he lied about how close he was to nearly getting me stuck under his wheel).
Please remember the legal distinctions between murder and manslaughter/death by dangerous or careless driving. Murder the intent is always to kill. I could easily argue the average motorist that is involved in these tragic incidents are nothing more than impatient or have a bad lapse of judgement with a fatal consequence, but are not murderers in that they went out to kill someone that day. Would you feel happy if your family member were named a murderer and went to prison for the rest of their life when they genuinely made a bad mistake? This is the reason the cyclist them years ago who killed a child when cycling like a lunatic only received a paltry sentence (was it wanton and furious cycling he was charged with? I've forgotten). It works both ways anyway.
The law is an a$$, I know this and I despair. If you think of all the times you have seen what you think should have been a conviction, think how many times Police Officers have seen it? I'd point out it's not even the law that is the toughest to tackle, it's the extremely high bar set by the Criminal Justice system (beyond all reasonable doubt) which makes prosecution incredibly difficult.
I would have taken the keys out but lobbed them over the hedge so he could see where they went, but not get them quickly... and then taken some random turns...
I don't doubt that Nick Ahad thought his actions of pulling up alongside the cyclist and saying "what do you think you're playing at?" [the words that Nick claims to have said] were not unreasonable.
However, he also claims that the cyclist was "riding hard" so you've got to factor in that pulling up alongside someone who is breathing hard, has the wind in their ears, add in the noise of the engine and car tyres right alongside and the distance between driver and cyclist (the driver leaning across the passenger seat plus the metre or so to the rider) and what the cyclist hears is "WHA WHA WAAAA WA WA". It's indistinguishable from someone shouting "Get off the road you moron" or someone saying "What time is it please?"
So I'd be inclined to believe the story of the cyclist being afraid - he very probably didn't even hear the exact words being said, just some bloke leaning across shouting out of an open window.
I know who Ronnie Pickering is, but who the fuck is Nick Ahad?
In the investigation world it's a balancing act remember. Most of the comments here have sided with the phantom key thief, which as he shares a common interest as the readers, and also we have all been in similar positions, find it a more likely story.
Consider in the Manchester evening news at the moment, a story of a girl who phoned police having been beaten up by a bouncer. She had bruises on her arms and everything. They are thugs them bouncers after all, let's just assume she is right and go and arrest him. Justice by all accounts is it not?
the police investigated, and found on cctv that the bouncer never touched her, and she had her friend punch her in the arm to give her the bruises. A completely malicious allegation. Oh, this poor thuggish bouncer completely innocent.
It was lucky Manchester is covered massively by CCTV otherwise this guys life could have been ruined.
Her story was plausible, it was believable, she had evidence, and people sympathised. With her because most of us have seen over zealous door staff before. In this case there was evidence proving she was a liar. But apply the same logic to this incident.
Cyclist gives his side, there is sympathy, motorist gives his side, but he's a bad guy and he is more likely to cause harm. There's presumably no cctv on that road, nobody is proffering dash cam or other captured footage, no other witnesses have come forward to support either claim. Tell me how you can deal with that? You can take the allegation, and would submit some report of crime ( because you can't prove it hasn't happened either ) but if you could convince a lay person, based on both accounts that one side is definitely more likely than the other, you should get a job in the CPS ( criminal protection service in my eyes ).
Trust me, no cop wants to say there is nothing we can do, but the law is weighted so heavily in favour of the accused to attempt to stop miscarriages of justice, it makes it almost impossible to prove cases like this, especially when the cyclist decides to take matters into their own hands and swipe the motorists keys.
Only the two people involved know the ins and outs here. That said, I suspect that many drivers genuinely don't see a problem with some maneuvres they make around cyclists and, in their ignorance of what they've just done, they think any hard words they get as a result are just unreaosnable sweary rants from swivel-eyed loony cyclists.
I also think that many drivers will be very ready to interpret things like taking primary or deviating from a perfectly straight line to avoid potholes or poor surfaces as "swerving all over the road and trying to hold up traffic".
Combine those two and you get "I was just trying to get to my important appointment, and one of those miltant cyclists was making a point of holding me and other hard-working motorists up. When I kindly pulled over to let him know what he was doing wrong he just started going mental!"
Like the comment way back that goes something like "how come the driver ended up in a position that the cyclist could take his keys?"
Don't think that Nick Ahad is making drivers look bad - he just demonstrated that some bad drivers are extremely arrogant and dumb enough when claiming to have been delayed to then slow down to harrass cyclists.
Should have just passed at safe opportunity and gone on his way. The drivers in front of him managed this ok, being an evangelist for safe cycling when driving a car will always be a tough call
You took his keys, that was wrong, no excuses. You lost or threw away his keys, this is wrong. It would cost any of us a lot of money to replace a set of keys, not to mention the stress and upset. My keys are personel to me and important to my work, even have a memory stick with important info on there.
Regardless of whatever excuses we can all have there can no justification for taking someone elses property and causing considerable upset and cost. Criminal I would imagine.
You make other cyclists look bad.
Nah he's a hero.
Driver couldn't be trusted with keys to a vehicle. Interestingly, key snatching from dangerous drivers is popular New Zealand.
Next time just post the keys to the police station with an explanation of the driver's dangerous conduct. We should have a law protecting citizens from temporarily confiscating property where not to do so may lead to harm.
Oh FFS, can we do away with the collective responsibility bollocks. Nothing that Key Snatcher did makes "other cyclists" look bad. Nothing that Nick Ahad did makes "other drivers" look bad.
It was an argument between 2 people, none of which translates into making anyone or anything in the wider world "look bad".
It would be nice if that were true, but I don't think it is. I think stories like this can and do reinforce the prejudices of people who already take a dim view of cyclists.
Like you, I think the "collective responsibility" thing is ridiculous, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in some people's minds.
Fair enough. You probably shouldn't have lost the keys though. Might be an idea to anonymously send him the cost of a new set and be done with it.
And hopefully this eejit will calm down and the police might take an interest in his manner of driving.
To those insulting all Christians, I would piint out that this guy appears to only have been going to church as it's a requirement of his choice of location for wedding. I think there's some gross "tarring with the same brush" here, and people are revealing their own prejudices.
No-one's insulting Christians. They don't actually exist.
All these may disagree with you
:
http://www.biography.com/people/groups/famous-named-christian
No-one doesn't exist ?
That got metaphysical really fast!
Edit: I'm sure someone will remind us of the classical story
"What's your name?" "Nobody"
"Nobody hit me"
"Stop complaining, then!"
Well that clarifies one point both parties agree on, why Mr Ahad calmed down during the argument: he suddenly realised he drove (very) dangerously in front of a number of witnesses.
Then as we know he chose to unleash internet mayhem on non british looking cyclist, misrepresenting himself and misrepresenting the facts. What a great man. He probably never went to the police, what every sensible, and blameless people would have done in this situation.
Remains a big mistery on the red car passage.
Peeler describes from the inside how Britain's roads have become the Wild West. They are alomst 100% unpoliced, and anyone can do anything, unless it results in a serious injury or death, and has to be looked into.
I realise Peeler isn't saying that it's right, but never investigating anything when it's one person's word against another is an abdication of responsibility. You might interview the two people, and get a clear picture of what happened, and charge one of them.
If you haven't got the resources, you have to decide what's a priority and what isn't, but it's bad for people on bikes if there's no chance of the rules of the road being enforced.
Theft: the dishonest apprehension of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.
A crime would be recorded if reported. It would not get charged due to lack of evidence and the reasonable argument that essential legal elements are missing. (dishonesty and the intention to permanently deprive - the act was done in self defence)
An assault does not need there to be physical contact, if there is physical contact it is a battery.
Dangerous driving is driving that falls so far below the standard expected of a competent and careless driver and is inherently dangerous.
If reported the driving would be both dangerous and an assault. Both are offences but under National Crime Recording Standards only the assault would be recorded with the dangerous driving being incorporated in the MO.
Neither would be charged due to lack of evidence. One persons word vs the other.
Lastly, this would not be a police priority. Yes it would be recorded but in my Force I would file both crimes without investigation. The prospect of either party ever meeting one another again is virtually nil and they both need to learn from the experience. We have insufficient resources and have to say we aren't doing things. This means we can focus on offences such as Domestic Abuse.
You'll note the deliberate lack of opinion.
No, the driver has admitted the offence of dangerous driving and a prosecution should be simple as guilt is undeniable.
As plod too I agree.
I could investigate til the cows come home, but is there a Realistic prospect of conviction? Am I going to be able to convince a jury of peers, beyond all reasonable doubt, that one was right and the other was wrong.
Perhaps the strength in this case may be nobody else complained, however that could be negated by the fact they may not have been late so didn't care either way. Lack of evidence can sometimes be evidence, but it's a bit shaky.
May the same time though, nobody complained they thought anyone was about to have a fight in the road, which again, perhaps both parties are playing the big I am card but in reality it was nothing more than a couple of verbal exchanges.
It's a tough call, and sadly most police forces would say it's not on the public interest to use public money to investigate it. At the same time, people will say can't you go and have a word? No, because that's not what the police are for.
The idea that taking someone's keys is a good idea, theft act or not, you would have to have an honest held belief that someone would be in immediate danger. If the only person who is in danger is you and that's because you've got your head stuck in someone's car having an argument, maybe you need to take a step back and think about what's going on. He might drive off and kill someone is a poor argument, your wound up you might ride off and being wound up miss the kid that runs out in front of you. The argument works both ways and you'd be annoyed if he got out and put your bike in his car because he thought you might ride into someone.
Surely mens rea is central to criminal law. Circumstances change case to case, some will pass the test, others won't. Some will find your behaviour contributory.
Either way, your argument for not legislating on the basis you described would mean we wouldn't have any laws full stop. Quite an odd view, worrying as it's from someone who works in the enforcement side.
circumstances do change case to case and mens reas is key, but proving the mens reas is the toughest part.
Id love to clear up some beliefs that armchair investigators have but alas, it falls on deaf ears. Ultimately it's not as simple as everyone seems to think, pulling up at the side of a cyclist, well they do that in pro racing. Shouting at someone through a window causing him to fear for his life, the mens reas would be to make that cyclist fear for his life. Words and actions. Any solicitor with any legal knowledge would tell their client " say you didn't intend to make him fear for his life ". Now prove he had the intent, prove his actions without any witness was as described. It's just not easy.
By all accounts laws are open to interpretation and change over time. Just because they are in place now doesn't mean they always will be or they won't be changed. There has to be some practical application. And ultimately, as public money, it should be spent on what is in the publics/political interest, which sadly, as a keen cyclist, I know it isn't us.
The investigation would only need to be very brief, as the driver has admitted driving alongside the cyclist and shouting at him through the window, putting the cyclist in reasonable fear for his life. Case proved.
I'd say lock him up and throw away the keys, but that would be cruel.
So how many people get killed or seriously injured each year by inconsiderate or incompetent drivers, and how many by cyclists?
Well both sides of the story are pretty much as expected. I suspect on version is more truthful and it's not the one from the guy that writes make believe as a living.
Unfortunately, the only answer I found for car confrontations is to use a camera.
Having camera footage is crucial, otherwise it is a battle of 'versions of the truth' as we are witnessing here.
The cyclist version does sound more realistic and personally I don't trust people with 'imaginary friends' that reside in churches.
Last guy I heard pulled the God card was fiddling kids. And the guy before that, and the guy before that. And the guy before that was hooking up with rent boys, and the guy before that was on Grindr posing in his panties.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org
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