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news
Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpg“Coward” driver “used car as weapon” against cyclist
A judge has branded a driver who used his car “as a weapon” against a cyclist a “coward” in relation to a road rage incident in Exeter last year in which he asked a food delivery rider if he wanted to “sort it out” before knocking him off his bike.
Sentencing Damon Browning, aged 25, at Exeter Crown Court, Judge David Evans told him that he only avoided a custodial sentence due to guidance to try and avoid handing them down during the coronavirus pandemic, reports Devon Live.
The court heard that Browning became angry with cyclist Carl Bennett because he believed he had cut him up on a roundabout as they both headed towards a Tesco store.
Browning then repeatedly slowed down, letting Mr Bennett ride past him, before making a close pass on him, almost hitting him with the wing mirror of his car.
On the third occasion, he said to the cyclist, “Do you want to sort it out here?”
Mr Bennett replied, “Really?” and cycled off, then heard Browning revving his car’s engine.
He was struck from behind and landed on the car’s bonnet before falling on the ground, sustaining bruises on his back and head.
The crash left his e-bike wrecked and his phone and glasses broken, costing him £2,000 in total.
Browning, who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, drove off immediately afterwards.
In mitigation, Rachel Smith, defending Browning, said he suffered from autism and was panicking because his pregnant girlfriend, whom he was driving to a shop because she had a craving for a milkshake, had just vomied in the car.
He was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work as well as paying the victim £500 in compensation.
“You used your car as a weapon,” Judge Evans told him. “It is a matter of luck that the cyclist was not more seriously injured. Witnesses saw you deliberately rev up your engine and collide with the back of his bike.”
“This was an incident of road rage, effectively, where your culpability was very high, although tempered by your autism.
“You drove into him from behind like a coward, thereby taking a very real, and importantly, an uncontrollable risk. You could have caused really serious injury or even death.
“I would be sending you straight to prison today. The only thing saving you is the pandemic and the conditions it has created in prison.
“With your autism, it would not just be difficult, it would be awful,” he added.
Browning was also banned from driving for two years and will have to take an extended retest before he can get his licence back.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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35 comments
They should offer him a choice of a prison term or a lifetime driving ban. That'd be fair.
If this bloke is happily driving around with a pregnant girlfriend then I'd venture he's not "autistic" as we'd generally recognise it, but rather "on the autistic spectrum" (eg. Asperger syndrome, etc).
A large percentage of the population is toward the interesting end of the autistic spectrum, so coming from this bloke's defence it means - er - almost nothing at all.
Using a car as a weapon = Jail time.
Not sure that can be right. According to the National Autistic Society, "there are around 700,000 autistic people in the UK". That's a little over 1% of the population. Whatever 'the interesting end' is, it must be less than that, which doesn't seem like it could be called 'a large percentage'.
The 700,000 is the interesting end. It's a spectrum.
No - the 700,000 is everyone with autism. The word 'spectrum' is misleading - it doesn't mean it's a linear thing with 'very autistic' at one end and 'not autistic' at the other - rather it means that it's multi-faceted / multi-dimensional, and can manifest differently in different people.
This is hilarious in a couldn't make it up sort of way. So excuses box has autism and a pregnant girlfriend with a desire for a milkshake. There you have it boys (inclusive) a cyclists life is worth a milkshake.
If he's so autistic he feels the need to potentially kill people he really shouldn't be driving. Once again medical intervention with the DVLA is needed. Or it could just be some throw away excuse.......
Rob somebody's phone and suddenly jail is not a problem.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-53472625
(I think it may depend on whose phone it is though.)
One wonders what sentence would have been passed if the father- in- law of an ex-prime minister had been assaulted repeatedly whilst on his bicycle by an angry driver in a car, resulting in fear, injury and significant financial loss.
" “You used your car as a weapon,” Judge Evans told him."
so why was he charged with Dangerous Driving and not Assault .
If the judge considers that the drivers behaviour was due to his autism, and he had medical evidence to support this i.e. from an expert witness, then I think a non-custodial sentence is appropriate. However by the same measure a lifetime driving ban should also served.
The sentence is simply a statement that the judge considers that deliberately attacking a cyclist with a car with intent to harm is not a sufficiently serious offence to allow him to disreard the Covid advice to avoid custodial sentences wherever possible. The same judge would say that threatening to deliberately kill cyclists was simply a hilarious joke, not to be taken seriously because such sentiments are fashionable amongst such people- including judges and paper columnists. Formerly they would have held such views regarding deliberately attacking or threatening black people, Jewish people etc.- they just daren't express such views now. All we need now is a similar effort to make such offences against cyclists shameful- the problem, as we have said so many times, is the police- English ones at least.
So a couple of weeks ago an elderly person with cataracts gets a custodial sentence for accidentally hitting (killing) a cyclist yet this guy gets off for using his car as a weapon, which could have killed the victim?! Austsim, like cataracts is a reportable condition, if it affects your ability to drive, which this undoubtedly does. The DVLA should not be allowing the defendant to reapply for his licence in this case.
Having used the Autism (however real the effects on him are) in a plea of mitigation and /or explanation he has surely stated in a court of law (albeit thru his lawyer) that he does not have a suitable temprement for driving and therefore should not be licenced to be on the roads
Autism my arse, the guys a cunt.
I hope if I'm ever up before a magistrate/judge they will be as easy to dupe.
Anybody else getting fed up with reading about all these lucky drivers? It seems that if you want to assault somebody and be lucky enough to avoid jail, use a car as a weapon
I wonder if someone who attacked and injured someone with a knife or gun would escape prison?
Something doesn't seem right there.
I suspect his insurance will be paying for the damage, and this is a bit of a sop for not sending the driver to prison.
Who's insurance though? If it's the cyclist, it's hardly fair on him if his premiums go up because of some idiot purposely damaging his bike.
I don't think you quite understand insurance. Drivers need insurance to compensate the damage they cause to others (third party is the minimum). Similarly with cyclists. The harm and damage was caused by the driver of the motor vehicle therefore it is the driver's insurance that pays. The cyclist's insurance is unaffected as it is a no fault claim.
I think you'll find I do understand how insurance works. The point I was responding to was why would the judge award £500 when the driver's insurance should cover the costs to the defendant. As you can see below, others have begun discussing this too. So don't lecture me on how insurance works.
"The crash left his e-bike wrecked and his phone and glasses broken, costing him £2,000 in total."
Why was there only £500 awarded in compensation?
That's criminal compensation, not civil liability for the damage caused. That'll be a separate bill.
The driver's insurance firm will pay for the wrecked bike and for loss of earnings. Whether the full £2,00 will be paid is something else though.
Maybe. Car insurance does not cover for deliberate acts.
Good point. We need to be kept updated about this. If the driver's insurance does pay up, they are accepting responsibility for a criminal act, not merely an innocent mistake. This could have profound implications for drivers and insurance.
I doubt there's a distinction - otherwise the universal nature of third-party cover would be completely eroded if the plaintiff has to first prove the act was not deliberate. Who, after all, could ever prove that the insured did not deliberately crash into them
I also half-remember that in the Westminster Bridge deliberate terrorist attack, the hire-car's insurer paid damages to the people who were run over ( or their families ).
( I may be wrong on this point, but best not to start typing such key phrases into the internet to check )
It's the same thing for drink driving, your insurance is invalid. What happens is that the insurer must pay out to the 3rd party first and then seek to recover those costs from their client separately.
disgusting sentence.
#fuckingstandard
Why is it that the level of injury is such a deciding factor. Surely it should be the intent. It is saddening to keep hearing "It was only a matter of luck that no serious injury was caused".
"... your culpability was ... tempered by your autism."
Bollocks. Autism does not predispose you to wilfully running down cyclists. But, if this bloke says that in his case it does, surely he has just declared himself unfit to drive, ever.
I believe the driving licence obliges drivers to inform DVLA if they have a medical condition that renders them unfit to drive. I wonder whether he has?
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