A non-league football manager has been fined £500 for careless driving after witnesses described how he used his vehicle as a weapon to force a cyclist off the road.
Chippenham Town caretaker boss Mike Cook, aged 51, had originally pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving and elected for trial by jury at Gloucester Crown Court, but entered a guilty plea to the less serious charge in court.
Cook, who was driving a BMW X3 had initially come across the cyclist on King’s Street in Stroud and remained behind him at the junction of George Street and London Road, reports the Stroud News & Journal.
Janine Wood, prosecuting, said that Cook made a close pass on the cyclist and was shouting at him.
Due to the congestion, the cyclist passed Cook again on Union Street, and Cook tried to overtake him again on a narrow section of that road but had to brake sharply because there was a Land Rover coming the other way.
Speaking in mitigation, Richard Dawson said Cook was frustrated with the bike rider and he was rushing to get home since he had spent three hours on a train.
Richard Dawson, defending, told the court that Cook was frustrated with the cyclist as he was in a rush to get home having been on a train for over three hours.
Besides the fine, Judge Michael Cullum also put six penalty points on Cook’s licence, which had already been endorsed with six points, meaning he was banned from driving for six months under the totting-up process.
Cook joined Chippenham Town earlier this year after briefly managing Gloucester City and previously managed Cinderford Town.
As a player, he won the FA Youth Cup with Coventry City before going on to play for league clubs including York City and Cambridge United.
19 thoughts on “Football manager fined for forcing cyclist off road”
someone should use a baseball
someone should use a baseball bat as a weapon on him (while sitting in a car) and watch as the courts give them points on their license (not)…
‘… in mitigation, Richard
‘… in mitigation, Richard Dawson said Cook was frustrated with the bike rider and he was rushing to get home since he had spent three hours on a train‘
I don’t want to jump on the ‘get the boot into the judiciary’ trip that seems to have become a national pastime of late, but if I were a judge, and some scrote tried that line on me, I’d double his sentence just for being f*****g cheeky.
cycle.london wrote:
It is totally outragious that “being in a rush” should be presented as mitigation. I would consider it more as an admition of guilt. To drive a car “in a rush” is dangerous driving by deffinition in my opinion.
iandusud wrote:
Indeed.
I think someone forgot to
I think someone forgot to remove the first draft of this story from the post. That or I suffered from intense deja vu while reading it. Maybe it was just a case of deja vu but it seems like the the first draft is at the bottom of the story.
That’s what I thought reading
That’s what I thought reading it. Simon made some notes, typed up the article above the notes and then hit the publish button, forgetting to submit it to the Road.cc proof-reading team.
“…the Road.cc proof-reading
“…the Road.cc proof-reading team.”
You crack me up, it’s the way you tell ’em.
You sound incredulous – I’ve
You sound incredulous – I’ve found an actual photo of them
Another CPS cave in to accept
Another CPS cave in to accept a lesser guilty plea and get brownie points with the Justice Ministry on how well they are performing.
It’s a good job there were no
It’s a good job there were no cars on the road or he would have forced them off the road too.
It’s a good job there were no cars on the road or he would have forced them off the road too.
road.cc wrote:
Hirsute, commenting, seemed to be having a subtle dig at the proof-reading on this article?
Speaking in comments, Hirsute, was apparently repeating himself in a possible attempt at mocking the lack of proof-reading at road.cc
As with all these local
As with all these local comments sections, there is the normal tool who runs through the usual gammon list of faults against cyclists including insurance, road tax, rlj and riding two abreast and essentially is stating the cyclist was probably at fault.
However an interesting comment is that cyclists apparently cycle along and hit his roof. To me, the only time I have seen cyclists bang on a roof is to make the driver aware they are about to crush the cyclist or remonstrarting on other shit driving. Never a common occurence so the question is what had he done?
“Richard Dawson, defending,
“Richard Dawson, defending, told the court that Cook was frustrated with the cyclist as he was in a rush to get home having been on a train for over three hours.”
That’s a defence? Sorry, but it isn’t and he should have been more severely treated because of it, and for driving a BMW and for initially denying the charge then pleading guilty to the lesser. If there were witnesses, plural, to his deliberate dangerous driving, why did the CPS accept his plea to the lesser charge of careless driving?
It’s pretty clear from the relatively heavy sentence which way the judge was going to go.
I totally agree. CPS trying
I totally agree. CPS trying to save money and accepting the lesser plea is a disgrace in this case due to witness testimony and the totally lame excuse. Careless driving is just that, thoughtless, accidental. His own “excuse” shows that this was anger and premeditated thoughts.
I agree, there is no
I agree, there is no mitigation here. It’s not the cyclists fault the man can’t manage his time better. In a hurry to get home, for what? He’d already spent 3 hours on a train, what would being patient for a few more seconds hurt. And the clue is in the cyclist passing you on a congested road, you’re no faster than them so why rush?
discard that lame excuse, you’re left with him using his car as a weapon. Make the punishment fit the crime.
So he basically admits he did
So he basically admits he did it, admitted it was because he was Very Important And In A Rush, but the CPS accepts it as “Careless”? If he intended to do it, then it’s not ‘careless’, is it?
I wonder if he is a bully in
I wonder if he is a bully in his chosen line of work, lot of power and control of course, not quite as much as the injury or death that could result from using a vehicle as a weapon, slightly less protection as a pointlessly massive BMW, but as the recent child abuse scandals in football have shown, it’s there.
Something odd here. You can’t
Something odd here. You can’t drive from London Road into Union Street as there are bollards at the bottom of Union Street. I suppose he could have gone up John Street and into Union Street that way, but why anyone who was ‘in a rush’ would even consider going up either of these roads in a car is beyond me – they are narrow, don’t go anywhere and are pedestrian in all but name. If he was going fast enough even to think about overtaking a cyclist I would regard it as driving dangerously. Only thing I can think is that he lived on Union Street, which makes it one of the stupider examples of MGIF.
Quote:
Did he need a poo?