A man has been jailed for 14 months after deliberately driving into five cyclists taking part in a bike race in Steeple in October. Keith Ancona had already gone past a road block when he hit the cyclists and drove off at speed afterwards.
The Maldham and Burnham Standard reports that Ancona had been driving his partner and two daughters to a children’s birthday party in his Audi A5.
While travelling along Batts Road, he was asked to wait for a bike race. He drove past a road block and was then stopped by a race marshal.
A heated exchange is said to have drawn the attention of a number of riders who had already finished. The winner stood in front of the car to block him and banged on the bonnet.
Richard Partridge, prosecuting, said: “The driver got back into his car and drove through a group of five cyclists. They were thrown into the air and onto the bonnet of the car, causing property damage in the region of £10,000. The defendant then drove off at high speed past the cyclists.”
Footage of the incident was released by Essex Police.
Man jailed for 14 months at Chelmsford Crown Court, on Thursday, June 15, for dangerous driving following a collision in October 2016. pic.twitter.com/h6XEHIGElh
— Essex Police (@EssexPoliceUK) June 30, 2017
Ancona failed to stop at the scene but handed himself in at Chelmsford police station five days later.
He admitted dangerous driving and causing actual bodily harm and was sentenced to six months in prison for dangerous driving, and an additional eight months for causing actual bodily harm, as well as being disqualified from driving for 22 months.
Judge David Turner said: “I’m not sure what you were thinking. You were in a powerful car with your partner and two children heading to a birthday party.
“You completely lost control. What happened was chilling behaviour. You tore off, knocking down cyclists and damaging a number of bikes.
“There can be no doubt in this case that as you drove off at some speed with no care to marshals or the public, including your young family, you were driving dangerously.”
Investigating officer PC Alan Lamb said: “We had CCTV footage of this incident, which was provided to us by a member of the public – this proved to be an invaluable asset to our investigations and is something we would encourage everyone to send across to us if they have video evidence of an incident.
“If you want to send in video or dash cam footage of a road incident, please email it to driving.complaints@essex.pnn.police.uk.”
49 thoughts on “Essex motorist jailed for deliberately driving into racing cyclists (+ video)”
At least it’s custodial but
At least it’s custodial but it’s still a lame sentence.
That’s Maldon not Maldham,as
That’s Maldon not Maldham,as in Alex Dowsett’s Maldon in Essex part of the country. I’d hate to say typical Audi driver, so I won’t,but it does feel fairly typical behaviour for lots of drivers in Essex I’ve encountered whose patience and ability to drive safely around other road users seems to be merely optional as far as they are concerned.
Awavey wrote:
Why are you sigling out Essex? It’s no worse than anywhere else.
Bigtwin wrote:
Why are you sigling out Essex? It’s no worse than anywhere else.— Awavey
I woukd disagree with you. I find drivers in Essex to be significantly more aggressive and entitled than in a lot od other places and get a lot more abuse and close passes when I ride there than when I ride in North Wales, Cheshire or yorkshire (which I do regularly)
Awavey wrote:
I was almost hit on a mini roundabout this morning..by an Audi.
Awavey wrote:
I will then….typical Audi driver…cunt
Gourmet Shot wrote:
I will then….typical Audi driver…cunt— Awavey
Am I cunt when I drive my Audi? And am I still a cunt when I put on the lycra and throw a leg over my bike (of which I have more than one)? I imagine I’m also a cunt when I drive my 4×4 which is a problem as some drivers think I’m a cunt when I ride my bike because I don’t pay the mythical road tax.
I am a cunt though, but not for any reason that you can think of.
But I’m not a thick cunt.
don simon wrote:
It depends whether you drive your Audi in a way that other people would call “typical” (I shouldn’t need to describe this on a road cycling forum). There is a reason that Audi drivers have been labelled ‘the new cocks of the road’ but most of us realise that that doesn’t mean that every owner of that marque drives like a c..t.
Similarly, drivers of Chelsea tractors give the impression that the inflated size and cost of ownership means they have purchased greater rights to the road than everyone else and that the rest of us should get out of their way (including other, smaller cars). This doesn’t seem to happen with Land Rovers or drivers of more modest 4x4s.
If it troubles you sufficiently then you could consider buying a less aspirational marque.
If this twat had deliberately tried to injure a family member of mine I would consider waiting for his release and subsequently ensure that he couldn’t walk, let alone drive.
Simon E wrote:
It depends whether you drive your Audi in a way that other people would call “typical” (I shouldn’t need to describe this on a road cycling forum). There is a reason that Audi drivers have been labelled ‘the new cocks of the road’ but most of us realise that that doesn’t mean that every owner of that marque drives like a c..t.
Similarly, drivers of Chelsea tractors give the impression that the inflated size and cost of ownership means they have purchased greater rights to the road than everyone else and that the rest of us should get out of their way (including other, smaller cars). This doesn’t seem to happen with Land Rovers or drivers of more modest 4x4s.
If it troubles you sufficiently then you could consider buying a less aspirational marque.
If this twat had deliberately tried to injure a family member of mine I would consider waiting for his release and subsequently ensure that he couldn’t walk, let alone drive.— don simon
I’d have thought that as cyclists, we’d be more aware and shy away from using sweeping generalisations.
Are Audis aspirational? I’d be aiming a little higher if I were you.
don simon wrote:
Sweeping generalisation there…
don simon wrote:
Many Audi drivers seem to think they are, despite the fact that you can park a brand new one on your drive for £200 a month.</car_snob>
don simon wrote:
People who ride bikes are not a homogenous group with shared values and Dalai Lama-like levels of empathy or insight.
Many people consider them to be. Perhaps it depends on your starting point.
I have no desire to ‘aim higher’ – by which I guess you mean more expensive. I consider such cars to be a complete waste of money.
The Audi is now without a
The Audi is now without a doubt the wankers car of choice, I see more incidents on my commute involving Audis than any other car. They’ve even pushed BMW’s into second place.
dreamlx10 wrote:
Mercedes are challenging for the tosseriest marque round my way now. BMWs don’t even seem to feature; the image became so uncool that only proper petrolheads seem to buy them these days – and proper petrolheads don’t use their car as a weapon.
The brands favoured by incompetent drivers seem to be Kia and Nissan. I try to avoid their jacked-up hatchback-fake off-roaders like the plague.
Audi drivers in Essex. They
Audi drivers in Essex. They’re not all maniacs, for sure, but as far as high risk groups for road rage go I can only think of a few worse, like cabbies in London, and drivers of red Ferraris with the number 5 on the front called Sebastian anywhere.
handlebarcam wrote:
Courier van drivers, generally Latvian/Brasilian/from somewhere else where a driving licence costs $5,
Surrey hosewives wafting around narrow county lanes at 70 in a 4 ton White Range Rover Vogue SEs,
90 year olds in Honda Jazz’s/Nissan Micras who cannot see beyond the end of the bonet and have the reaction times of a pissed-up 3-toed sloth
Terry in a chavved up Corsa/Astra with full road scraping skirts and a galvanised dustbin exhaust.
..are a few that spring to mind.
All the hallmarks of the Nice
All the hallmarks of the Nice attack. High security prison at the least.
Quote:
Worry not people of Derbyshire, this doesn’t apply to you.
Why does the driving ban not
Why does the driving ban not start after release?
Leviathan wrote:
It does. The old system, where a ban could be finished before the prisoner was released, was scrapped a couple of years ago.
Leviathan wrote:
Why does the driving ban finish after 22 months. It should never finish 🙁
Pub bike wrote:
Correct. Driving should be seen by society as a privilege, not as a right.
Driving ban should be
Driving ban should be permanent pending psychological evaluation at the very least.
This is not someone who took a chance and it went wrong this is a deliberate attack.
Not sure why it is less serious than deliberately driving into a load of pedestrians, because the driver is not Muslim perhaps?
wycombewheeler wrote:
…and because the victims are cyclists unfortunately.
From the Maldon and Burnham
From the Maldon and Burnham Standard:
“Ciara McElvogue, mitigating, said: “It is with great regret that he finds himself back in front of the court after such a long period of no offending. He has turned his life around and has a young family.””
I was thinking the punishment was a touch lenient until I saw that. It doesn’t say what his previous court appearances were for but that sentence appears to be extremely lenient for a serial offender.
Should have crushed his
Should have crushed his bloody Audi.
Bidon through the windscreen,
Bidon through the windscreen, its the only way to be sure
The knock on consequences for
The knock on consequences for him will be their for ever. Points on licence for 12 years criminal record forever, loss of job and house potentially. Good!
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Least he deserves though really.
Some of you people have
Some of you people have obviously never been late for children’s party (and driven an Audi). Cyclists be damned.
Not saying this guy didn’t get what he deserved but it also highlights sentencing problems when killers are getting away with less than this one.
Prison time?
Prison time?
Blimey.
Was one of the cyclists related to the Chief Constable?
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
No.
If he had done this down the
If he had done this down the pavement of a central London bridge, I wonder if the sentence would have been the same.
Ramuz wrote:
Yes please, no trial just shoot them.
Much as I do admire don simon
Much as I do admire don simon’s Audi addiction, I do wonder what Audi are doing in their new advert, asking what Audi drivers might do “If they only had a brain?”
I’m tempted to buy an Audi
I’m tempted to buy an Audi just to prove you
.
.
.
.
.
Right!
The thing that’s troubling me
The thing that’s troubling me here, and I may have missed something, but why did it take five days for the driver to hand himself in. Why weren’t the police knocking on his door?
joe24737 wrote:
It’s a fair question, but one to which I think we all know the answer.
If you make a politically incorrect post on social media however, you’ll soon have your collar felt.
srchar wrote:
I have a rather nice jacket with a felt collar.
No prizes for guessing the
No prizes for guessing the make of car the driver chose to cause this tragic maymen.
Those old enough will
Those old enough will remember an ad Audi ran in the 80’s with a typical chav type testing one of their cars but handing the keys back say it wasnt for him. The inference being Audi were more sophisticated than your average BMW driver would care for.
Now a white Audi does seem to be the car of choice for go getting types.
If it wasnt an Audi it would be something else- advertising cars as penis enlarging should be restricted as should the speed they are capable of, if anything else caused such harm it would be banned outright.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp
[Url]https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/12/26/audis-in-houses/amp/[/url]
Quote:
No, we’re not, are we?
I also notice poor behavior
I also notice poor behavior amonf Audi and BMW drivers but not that much from Mercedes deivers even if all cars have similar prices and specifications. I would really like to know why this happens
cyclisto wrote:
Audi are the most PPP’d (and most stolen) cars in the nation. Therefore driven by people who’s income and status doesn’t stretch to buying them propely, there are merely aspirational baubles. Mercs tend to be driven by older buyers.
Bigtwin wrote:
Except it isn’t that straightforward: Mercedes is singled-out in this article about car finance (80%+ of new sales).
So we’ve got to throw some other things into the mix, in this really fucking stupid thread:
– Our favourite bias (confirmation!!!) here, on the part of the observer (bloody Audi, not indicating etc etc)
– and very likely, the ‘Essexness’ of the brand, and, bizarrely, that attractiveness of that virtue.
– and loads of other bias and stupid shit.
My own bias is that many Mercs are driven by half-blind, sloth-reactioned coffin dodgers, who, deep down, want a car that drives itself, but, being boomer control freaks, will be the last in the queue to actually own one.
I currently drive a truck and a Golf, so I’m probably a rednecked mullet-sporting metrosexual, at least until I replace one of them.
Can we kill this one now? Hitler, Nazis etc.
davel]
Nope. Audi’s are in vast quantities, merely chavved up WV’s/Skodas. Especially the white ones. Mercedes are, on a median basis, far more expensive, and until the recent disgrace of the new A Class, generally not boy racer wagons (c.f. new Jags; simply embarassing). Put simply, Merce are generally full of wood and leather, Audi’s suede, plastic and carbon fibre.
There’s an awful lot of
There’s an awful lot of stereotyping going on in here. I think I can feel something coming… how about we start a group, we can call it the UK Audi Independance Party, maybe we can campaign for a referendum on whether or not we may or may not want White German cars coming over here using our roads and taking our lives…. Oh wait… no, it was just a poo.
This is right along one of
This is right along one of the routes I ride regularly, most of the time when there’s a race on drivers seem pretty relaxed about it (I accidentally ended up involved in a race there once without realising). However, I’ve got to agree with some of the posts above, there definitely appears a greater majority of bad drivers in Essex than a lot of places I’ve cycled, unfortunately there was a cyclist airlifted to hospital on fathers day in Maldon due to a taxi attempting an overtake up a hill in Maldon.
Not sure why the judge had to specify that he was driving a powerful car, surely any car in the context of an accident with a cyclist/pedestrian is powerful enough to do significant damage, and if he’s a repeat offender, this does seem like a fairly light sentence for what was clearly an attempt to injure.