Daisy Abela, the driver at the centre of a twitter storm over the weekend after she claimed to have ‘purposely knocked off a cyclist’ apologised on Twitter this morning.
Ms Abela has changed the username of her primary account, which remains protected, and apologised via an account that shares the username from which she posted about driving into a cyclist and still being drunk.
Here are Ms Abela’s tweets. We’ve edited only misspellings and minor punctuation.
“I would like to start off firstly by apologising for any offence I may have caused other cyclists with my tweets on Saturday.
“I did not intend to upset anybody. Truth is I was joking with a friend, I thought it was a conversation between two people...
“Not one that would be broadcast to the rest of the world and cause such uproar.
“I understand and accept that my tweets sound incriminating and when reading them back sound frankly disgraceful
“But in fact they have been largely exaggerated and blown out of proportion. This incident was NOT a drunken hit and run.
“This was investigated by the Metropolitan Police and has been resolved. But for peace of mind I'd like to explain myself...
“On Saturday morning at around 9am I was driving behind a group of cyclists riding 3 abreast when I attempted to overtake at a clear point.
“As I did so, a fourth cyclist also tried to get ahead of the others leading to a near collision.
“I then shouted out of my open window "you're going to cause a crash riding like that" to which I received angry shrieks of abuse.
“I continued driving at around 10mph (approaching traffic) when the said cyclist caught up with me. He began hammering on my roof...
“And spitting at me as he shouted through my window "what's your fucking problem with cyclists?"
“I do not have a problem with cyclists, my issue was with the dangerous way he was cycling. We exchanged words whilst near enough stationary.
“Then there was a brief collision in which nobody was hurt. Not a "hit and run". This could equally have been caused by him cycling into me.
“Nobody was injured during the incident, there was no impact on the cyclist as he continued to scream abuse as he rode off!
“I did not lose a wing mirror it was merely pushed in. I appreciate how my tweet may have been misinterpreted.
“I strongly deny the allegations of drink driving seeing as the incident happened at 9am in the morning I was certainly not drunk.
“My tweet was referring to my silly behaviour the night before - a joke with my friend. I was NOT drunk at the time of the incident.
“My comments were terribly exaggerated and made in anger after being physically and verbally attacked by the cyclist.
“I should not have generalised all cyclists in such a way and once again I apologise for doing so and for my ludicrous comments. Thank you.”
At the time of writing, we’re waiting for a response from the Metropolitan Police to our questions about this incident. Ms Abela says she spoke to officers from Bromley police, but that is not yet corroborated.
If anyone knows the riders involved in this incident, please get in touch with the other side of the story.
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.