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news
Celia Ward falls into path of car after being confronted by Auriol Grey (via Cambridgeshire Constabulary and BBC News)Pedestrian jailed for manslaughter over cyclist's death has conviction overturned
A woman who was sentenced to three years in jail for manslaughter after being found by a jury to have confronted an elderly cyclist, causing her to be killed after she fell into the path of a vehicle, has had her conviction overturned at appeal.
Auriol Grey, who has cerebral palsy and is partially blind, had her conviction overturned today by the Court of Appeal, the BBC reports, three judges ruling that the prosecution's case had been "insufficient even to be left to the jury" and that the "appellant's conviction for manslaughter is unsafe".
Ms Grey's lawyers had told the judges that they believed no "base offence" was ever identified during the trial, a manslaughter conviction requiring an unlwaful action to have caused the death of Celia Ward in 2020, the senior judge later stating in conclusion that, "Had Mrs Ward not died we regard it as inconceivable that the appellant would have been charged with assault."
The 50-year-old had been walking along a route in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, when she shouted at the cyclist to "get off the pavement" and gestured as she passed, Mrs Ward falling off her bike and into the path of oncoming traffic.
When Ms Grey was sentenced, Judge Sean Enright had called her "territorial about the pavement" and having "resented" the presence of a cyclist on it. However, whether the route was in fact a shared-use path was also questioned during the initial trial, Cambridgeshire Constabulary unable to "categorically" ascertain whether Mrs Ward had been cycling on a shared use path or pavement.
The case prompted campaigners to urge highways authorities to remove conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, with new shared-use signs installed in the town.
Grey left the scene before the arrival of the emergency services and went to a supermarket to do her shopping. She was arrested the next day, and claimed that Mrs Ward had been cycling "at high speed" and that she was "anxious I was going to get hit by it" so "flinched out with her left arm to protect herself".
CCTV footage shared by Cambridgeshire Constabulary showed Grey shouting at Mrs Ward, described by her widower as an "experienced and competent cyclist", to "get off the f***ing pavement" and the pedestrian was jailed for three years last year having been found guilty at a retrial.
However, appeal judges Dame Victoria Sharp, Mrs Justice Yip and Mrs Justice Farbey concluded that they have "no hesitation" in concluding that the conviction was "unsafe" and that the prosecution's case had been "insufficient even to be left to the jury".
The trio of appeal judges agreed with Ms Grey's lawyers, one of whom — Adrian Darbishire KC — argued that no "base offence", an unlawful action to have caused the death was ever established during the trial.
Dame Sharp said the jury had never been asked to decide "the fundamental question of whether a base offence was established" and concluded that "had Mrs Ward not died we regard it as inconceivable that the appellant would have been charged with assault".
While her gesture towards the cyclist was described as "hostile", Darbishire KC responded: "Hostile gesticulation is not a crime, otherwise we would have 50,000 football fans each weekend being apprehended."
The Crown Prosecution Service's barrister Simon Spence KC told the court that it was accepted that "common assault as the base offence was not identified by name". He later asked for the case to be returned to the Crown Court for a retrial, a request that was denied.
In a statement released after the conviction was overturned, Ms Grey's family urged for "lessons to be learnt".
"Whilst we welcome the decision of the Court of Appeal, our thoughts today are also with the Ward family, and I am a sure a day doesn't go by when they don't remember their tragic loss," the statement said.
"We are very relieved that Auriol's prison ordeal is over and we would like to thank the staff and inmates of HMP Peterborough for the kindness and consideration they have shown over the last year.
"There has been unnecessary and prolonged suffering and vulnerable people like Auriol need better support from the justice system — we hope lessons will be learnt."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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103 comments
If they'd appealed her sentence and decided she'd been punished enough I'd have been OK with it. Unfortunately, this judgement implies she wasn't guilty at all.
There can be legal interpretations about technicalities, but the media coverage gives the very strong impression that the woman who died was in the wrong, and her assailant was an innocent victim. While I can accept the woman who was previously found guilty may have genuinely believed it was a pavement for pedestrians only, the media coverage is repeating that as absolute fact, as if the victim, who has not been able to give her point of view, was willfully cycling on a pavement and threatening the welfare of vulnerable people.
Darbishire KC sees that as a ridiculous notion. I see it as a good start.
Darbishire KC needs to reconsider their chosen vocation surely?
most hostile gesticulation by football fans is not at a distance of less than a foot. If I swing a baseball bat at someone and the jump back off the platform onto the train tracks I don't get to say ah well, not my fault, there was no contact.
I find it absolutely spine-chilling that you can push someone, not least an old lady, in front of an on-coming car, and walk away free. Just walk away without responability, like how this evil person walked to Sainsbury's after she killed another human being. Will we hear from Ian Duncan Smith regarding a "death by dangerous walking" amendment?
Honestly, this case is the last straw for me. I don't feel any positivity about being a cyclist anymore. I've always just wanted to get to Lidl without dying and now I can be reassured by the knowledge that someone can just push me to my death and they will get away with it one way or another. I'm not a human being when I get on the saddle, all I'm ever told/shown/treated is that I'm worthy of death.
Push?
Where do you see that she pushed her?
wHeRe dO yOU sEe tHAt sHE pUShED hEr
In the video. I do not care what technicalities meant that they couldn't decide in court. The video for me is clear. As the victim falls, the pusher's elbow is in a position that makes it so obvious that she pushed her.
The pusher also walked basically towards and in front of the lady and between the road and a lamppost, essentially directing the victim into the road. She caused that ladys death whether the court puts her in jail or not.
Then you need your eyes tested. You *inferring* the movement ending in a push is not the same as the video showing she was pushed. The moment of contact isnt shown.
IIRC the police at the time said that they had a longer version of the video, which wasn't released to the general media/public.
From up thread
"In all honesty it's horrific and not appropriate for wider release to the public, but, if it were, then I think a lot of the arguments in relation to appropriate responses would be null and void."
No doubt that Grey caused Ward's death but - from the court judgement: "there was no evidence which could make the jury sure that the appellant had made any physical contact with Mrs Ward"
www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/20240508-R-v-Auriol-Gray.pdf
I'm as appalled as anyone else on this site at this tragic incident. I may be unpopular for pointing this out but someone with mental health problems and a visual impairment isn't 'evil'. However perplexing you may find the Court's decision equating an individual's disability to a moral deficiency is as unbecoming as it is unacceptable.
Equally someone with mental health problems and a visual impairment is capable of being "evil" just as much as the next person. I don't think the OP was equating Grey's disability with her actions at all. It's worth noting that the original trial judge made a point of stating that her actions had no connection with her disabilities.
The equivalence of mental health problems and visual impairment with evil is in your reply, not in the post you are answering.
"...like this evil person", these aren't my words but those of the individual making the post. Still it's a sunny and there's far more worthwhile things to do than squabble, I hope you have a wonderful afternoon.
I'm not confortable with the 'evil' description either. I'm also prepared to accept a custodial sentence may not have been appropriate. However, it's not fair on the lady who died that her death is now being treated as a bit of a whoopsie.
If her legal team think she has diminished responsibily for medical reasons then they can argue that. As far as I'm aware they didn't.
I can't help but think her defence is not one of someone who has a different recollection of events, but one who didn't realise there would be video evidence to contradict her statement, and was relying on the lack of witness testimony from the woman whose death she caused.
So the conviction was overturned because the CPS didn't explicit state that Ms Grey's hostile actions which constitute common assault, were in fact an act of common assault?
BS technicality!
That's exactly what the appeals court rules on. Contary to popular opinion it's not about getting a second opinion of your guilt or innocence but whether the process and letter of the law was applied.
In this case it wasn't. End of story, whether we like it or not.
She was tried for manslaughter, found guilty and the conviction overturned due to lack of an underlying assault charge.
She can't be retried for manslaughter, fine, but by that same technicality surely the CPS *could* take her back to court to be tried for assault?
Costs and public interest rule it out, ie she's already spent 1 year in jail, it's unlikely there'd be any further sentencing appropriate for it.
What the CPS should be doing is working out how they managed to screw up presenting the unlawful act part in the original trial.
That makes sense, but it seems like a miscarriage of justice to me and the friends/family of Celia Ward should be considered too. Justice should be about more than just a balance sheet.
Personally, I think a year in jail is reasonable, so a suspended sentence would seem appropriate to send the right message about public aggression.
Fair enough overturning the original conviction if they found that the letter of the law had not been applied correctly.
However, by refusing a retrial, the appeal judges also seem to have also concluded as a matter of fact that not only was the unlawful act not specified, it never happened - i.e. Ms Grey's actions absolutely did not constitute assault.
I think that is what is hard to stomach about this ruling. Obviously we have only read little tidbits in the media, but it certainly sounds to me like Ms Grey's actions could have been assault. Therefore, a retrial, in which a jury is asked to decide whether or not the unlawful act has been proven beyond reasonable doubt, would seem the more just outcome. We don't know exactly what directions were given to the jury in the original trial, but they clearly believed Ms. Grey was criminally culpable, and I would struggle to understand how the jury could reach that conclusion unless the jury believed Ms. Grey intended to hit or push Ms. Ward (which would be assault, even if it was not specified by name during the trial).
The police comments at the time were
Det Sgt Dollard, who interviewed Grey, told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: "I'll always remember the morning after it occurred obtaining the CCTV and watching it in its entirety.
"In all honesty it's horrific and not appropriate for wider release to the public, but, if it were, then I think a lot of the arguments in relation to appropriate responses would be null and void."
I think stonojnr has it right though with "Costs and public interest rule it out, ie she's already spent 1 year in jail, it's unlikely there'd be any further sentencing appropriate for it."
Potentially I could sympathise with that argument, but that is not the justification that has been given. I would also have thought that that decision ought to be made by the CPS choosing not to persue a retrial, rather than by the Appeal Judges refusing to permit one.
They're maybe a more technical lawyer speak reasoning for barring a retrial, it's just my assumption that it sits in the bucket marked costs,time, public interest etc.
Except it is quite clear from the video that she didn't "flinch" out with her arm at the last moment (which would be my understanding of 'flinched out'), she was walking toward the cyclist shouting at her and waving her arm about like she was being attacked by a swarm of flies.
This is, IMO, the wrong decision
Seems it wasn't clear to the appeal judges though - rather the opposite.
IANAL but despite the "technical" nature of the appeal (no "base offence") from the pretty strong comments by the judges and the denial of a retrial they sound certain the case had little merit and/or the prosecution made a total mess.
I'm not sure myself - IIRC initially it seemed a long shot to prove anything but later it was reported that there was some footage that the police had which was more conclusive (and damaging to the defendant's case). Only read reportage here and the Beeb though so IDK.
Educate yourself on how the appeals court works. It's not how you are thinking it does.
I do get it.
The appeal court looks at whether the letter and process of the law was adhered to, and have decided that it wasn't because the prosecution didn't invoke the correct magic phrase.
But also declared that there couldn't be a retrial (presumably because she'd never ever get a fair trial now).
I still think that is the wrong decision - even if they didn't say "Abracadabra" they surely demonstrated that her actions met the threshold for criminal
liability. (edit) prosecution.Pages