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news
Francis Street, Tonyrefail (inset: Jonathan Casey, South Wales Police)Drug driver already disqualified from driving sentenced to eight months in prison for hitting cyclist who was thrown eight feet in the air, leaving him with fractured skull and spine
A driver who was already disqualified from driving has been sentenced to eight months in prison for hitting a cyclist, throwing him eight feet in the air and leaving him with a fractured spine and skull — while under the influence of heroin.
Jonathan Casey, 41, was driving his brother’s brother’s Vauxhall Corsa through Thomastown, near Tonyrefail, on February 27 when he hit cyclist Michael Crawford, who was riding along Francis Street in the same direction of the Casey.
Upon impact, Crawford was thrown eight feet into the air and ended up landing on the pavement. His bike was lodged under the bumper of the car, with Casey continuing to drive for almost a mile before coming to a stop.
Crawford was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff where he was treated for a number of injuries, including fractures to the spine and skull, four broken ribs, a fractured sternum, cheekbone, and clavicle, and a broken ankle. He spent a week in hospital before being discharged on March 5.
The sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court heard that Casey was disqualified from driving at the time and had no driver’s licence or insurance, reports Wales Online. He had also been previously convicted for drink-driving, failing to stop, and driving without due care and attention.
The collision scene was attended to by the police, who began searching for the vehicle. Casey was arrested a week later at his home at Happy Valley Caravan Park in Wig Fach, Bridgend.
When questioned by the police, Casey admitted that he was a heroin user and had used the drug on the morning of the collision. He said that he had momentarily fallen asleep while driving and when he heard the crash, he thought he had collided with a lamppost. When he realised it was actually a cyclist he hit, he claimed he was “afraid of the consqueuences” since he was disqualified from driving.
Meanwhile, in a statement read to the court Mr Crawford said: “Since the collision I have spent all my time in the house. Before I was an active person and would be out a lot of the time. I have been unable to do this which has had a knock-on effect on my mental health and has put a strain on my wife. I've found it hard to stay indoors and struggle to get upstairs. I have been uncomfortable with my injuries.
“I do not have a driving licence so cycle everywhere which is now not possible to do. I walked my dog every day but have been unable to do that until recently. I have been unable to do gardening which is something I enjoyed. I am in a lot of pain and my quality of life has suffered because I have been stuck in my home and been unable to live a normal life.”
The defendant’s mitigation lawyer said that her client was remorseful for the consequences of his actions and said he “wished it was him”. She also added that her client had relapsed following the suicide of another brother but since his remand in custody he has been on methadone.
Casey later pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by careless driving, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance and a licence.
Judge Shomon Khan sentenced Casey to a total of eight months imprisonment. He was disqualified from driving for four years and four months.
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after completing his masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Cymru, and also likes to write about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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30 comments
Charlie Alliston got 18mths and is the reference case (because there are so few cases) for all campaigns by anti-cyclists that 'cyclists are not being treated the same as drivers, so we need more anti-cycling laws to discourage
cyclingdangerous cyclists' They have it right, the law isnt being applied fairly.How do we stop banned drivers from driving again?
The only current solution is prison and that's got its own problems.
How about a tag which administers a painful ,but not lethal, electric shock if it detects it is travelling at a speed over, say, 20mph. This would effectively limit the subject to walking and cycling. I know that would not allow public transport which may seem bit harsh, but I am not suggesting this for a first ban but for repeat offenders. This solution would have the added benefit of forcing active travel with it's known positive effects on mental and physical health which may help in getting the subject off drugs in this case. I am sure there would be many objections to this but I suspect any problems arising could be overcome with a few tweaks. Surely it's better for a serial offender to suffer inconvenience rather than another vulnerable road user suffer life changing injuries or worse.
Then there is the issue of how he came to be driving his brother's car. Either he had permission and the brother should be held culpable or it's taking without permission which is an additional offence.
Might have rather a counter-productive effect if there are any downhills on their cycle route.
Tweak no 1 then. The tag would need to beep at around 15mph getting more frequent as it approaches 20. It would come with an advisory note to ensure the bicyle had working brakes.
Joking aside, governments could require new cars to be fitted with smart ignition systems that operate only for a licensed driver. No doubt there would be workarounds, just as there are for all security systems, and it would take 10+ years to filter through. But the basic technology/infrastructure to achieve it has been around for at least 20 years.
I think you're missing an opportunity to pack even more tech into it - add accelerometers that can detect whether they're pedalling or stepping. And as a bonus you can pair it with an app that can report their steps / revolutions to them. And extend their punishment if they're not hitting some defined minimum.
Simple solution: any vehicle, that hasn't been reported as stolen, being driven by a disqualified driver gets scrapped.
"We need dangerous cyclists to be treated the same as dangerous drivers; the 2 year sentence for wanton and furious driving isn't adequate"
My sympathies are with the victim. I hope he continues to recover and can regain mobility and the ability to cycle, while also being able to deal with the mental strains of this nasty incident.
As for the perpetrator, I'm sure he has his demons. But I can't see how he should ever be allowed to drive again, not that any penalties seem to stop him anyway. It does beg the question how such repeat offenders can be stopped from driving.
Unfortunately, if someone is determined to drive whilst being disqualified, then the only way to protect the public is to keep repeat offenders in prison. Eight months is clearly not enough time for their victim(s) to even recover before they're back out on the road and ruining someone else's life.
the only way to protect the public is to keep repeat offenders in prison
Big fines!- without giving way to all the pleas of poverty.
Resorting to fines just sends the message that it's okay to be run over by rich people.
Yes (and prison will at least stop them while they're there, albeit at cost...) But ... to a first approximation it's always going to be OK in practice for rich enough people to break laws. Just look across the atlantic, or indeed at the leaders of the bigger countries conducting a couple of our more recent wars.
More a question of how we can make fines work for the poorer (if they're living hand-to-mouth or chaotically it may simply not be possible to get money from them without it being almost as costly as prison), while also extending the punishment (AND making it actually punishing) as high as we can up the wealth and priveledge pyramid.
*cough* Tony Blair's war crimes *cough*
Good point, I'd probably conveniently forgotten that due to my part in that (voting, "I paid a lot of tax and bought a fraction of a bomb" etc.)
Every time I see that smug, smirking "Christian" face, I'm reminded about it. Unfortunately with John Prescott's death, Blair is keen to promote himself again and thus I keep seeing his face.
From John Prescott's Wikipedia entry:
I'd charge high income offenders with the cost of their imprisonment. If it's income from assets charge them twice.
An excellent idea but then - due to expensive lawyers and accountants - no doubt the richer would be found to personally not own or control a penny (for legal purposes). They're just all surrounded by friends who happen to lend them houses, vehicles, large sums of money when they need ...
Can't find the link, but I thought it was reported recently that nearly half of all the fines issued by courts go unpaid and only a fraction are chased up by debt collectors.
I believe that a driving ban should be like a condition of a suspended sentence, driving while disqualified should be an auto matic prison sentence. The sentence lenght should be for the length of the original driving ban (not just the remainder) as the public should be free from thier driving risks for the duration of that ban and we should assume that they have been driving since the start of the ban - no appeals no pleas, just a simple transfer of driving ban to jail time.
Joke sentence for the joke offence which the authorities choose to apply because of their belief that cyclists bring it on themselves by being on the roads, causing traffic jams and pollution etc. etc. It's very difficult to drive any more dangerously than this!
What I don't get with a case like this, is why does the justice system think doing the same thing will make it better next time, he has previous driving convictions including failing to stop and drink driving.
He has now ignored a court instruction to stop driving, whilst also choosing to take drugs and taken steps to avoid the consequences (driving away, hiding indoors ...). this character has shown no genuine remorse and complete contempt for everyone, starting point should be the maximum sentence available, whilst any breach of a further driving ban should be an automatic return to jail for the full duration of said ban.
just re read and saw it was "due care & attention" - again I firmly believe that banned and/or drugged drivers should be on a dangerous driving charge, they have previously prooved themselves not reponsible to drive and everyone knows that drugs affect judgement and should not be mixed with driving.
Someone needs to tell this story to that woman in Metro the other day, who was convinced that motorists are treated more harshly than cyclists...
Hoping things improve for the victim.
Clearly this offender is not likely to stop offending - at least while not in prison or being intensively managed - BUT it does make you think "if we can't even take this seriously, what chance do we have with the thousands of 'otherwise law abiding' offenders? "
Not take it seriously? What do you mean?
He was convicted of "careless driving" after hitting a person with a car, while using heroin, while disqualified from driving, without a driving licence. How much more seriously could the justice system possibly take it?!
And without being sarcastic - an 8 month prison sentence. Long enough to make the perpetrator's life even more unstable and insecure and not nearly long enough for any rehabilitation (as if the prison service had funding for that) to improve the future.
A charge of "careless driving" is not taking the offense seriously at all. Why not "dangerous driving" which this clearly was? How on earth does driving whilst disqualified and falling asleep at the wheel not count as dangerous?
Anything less than a lifetime driving ban and 5 years in prison is just dicking around.
I think momove's middle paragraph was sarcastic.
I can imagine the judge paraphrasing Lady Bracknell:
"To hit a cyclist, Mr Casey, may be regarded as a misfortune; to hit one while using heroin, disqualified from driving and without a driving licence looks like carelessness."
Phrases such as "Showed remorse", "Wishes it was him", should not be allowed as mitigation statements. They can't be verified and in a lot of cases are uttered as a matter of course.
Sometimes it's just hard to find the right comments 😶. Just hope the cyclist manages to move on in life and that his marriage survives.