An accountancy chief has been cleared of causing the death of a cyclist in a collision with a group ride on a country lane in Suffolk, the driver’s lawyer having blamed the fatal crash on “the position of the cyclists”.

The collision happened on the evening of 17 May 2023 on Church Road, near Bentley in Suffolk, a country lane that the Mail reported from Ipswich Crown Court is a designated ‘Quiet Route’, on which the collision happened at a “very gentle bend”.

Thomas Gibbs hit Ben Jacobs, who was third in a line of four cyclists riding in single file, the 47-year-old father of three suffering a significant brain injury. He was airlifted to a hospital in Cambridge but died the following day.

The court heard how Mr Gibbs had told the cyclists after the collision he was late getting home to a nanny who was looking after his children, however in a prepared statement to police and throughout the trial it was insisted that the driver had not been in a rush.

The BBC was also at Ipswich Crown Court for the trial and reported Mr Gibbs had left Manningtree station at about 18:51pm, having spent the day working in London. There was evidence to suggest he was listening to music through earphones and the report also states the driver “had used his phone, but not in the seven minutes before the collision”.

Mr Gibbs said his speed at the time of the collision had been between 20-30mph, the cyclists’ computers and GPS data suggesting they were travelling in the opposite direction at around 22mph. The conditions were described as “perfect” on the early summer evening and the group ride was in single file at the bend.

Responding to the claim he had been in a rush to get home, Mr Gibbs said he could “only put these comments down to me being in a state of shock and, by the time I made that comment, I was late to pick up my children”.

The police investigation suggested from the driver’s vehicle’s tyre marks that there had been a 1.1m gap between his car and the verge, through which the riders would have had to ridden in order to avoid an impact.

The first rider was not hit, but the second rider David Solomon suffered facial injuries including a broken nose. The fourth rider at the back of the group also avoided injury, but Mr Jacobs, in the third place in the line, was hit into the air.

Mr Gibbs, who co-founded a Shoreditch-based accountancy firm, suggested overgrown grass verges may have hampered visibility.

“As far as I was concerned, I was paying proper attention to the road ahead,” he said. “I simply did not have time to avoid the collisions or take sufficient evasive action.”

The court heard that both the driver and cyclists’ vision would have been obstructed by foliage, the trial told Mr Gibbs would not have seen the cyclists until 1.6 seconds before the impact.

The fourth cyclist in the group, Jason Taylor recalled: “My first thought was the car didn’t appear to be slowing and that alarmed me – it was coming at quite a speed towards us and it all happened so quickly… it was a full impact strike.”

However, the speed Mr Gibbs was driving at was not viewed as a factor, according to the forensic collision investigator, PC Mark Head, who said it was not a “high-speed collision” and who described the driver as “attentive”. Likewise, the judge suggested there was “no criticism of the speed of his journey” and PC Head added there was no evidence to challenge the claim Mr Gibbs was driving at speeds between 20-30mph.

Prosecutor Charles Myatt had argued “whatever speed he was driving at, it was simply too fast in all the prevailing circumstances”, and that if the proper speed was used such a collision would not have occurred. It was noted the narrow lane had several bends, with mud and sand occasionally at the side of the route and debris in the middle.

Mr Gibbs’ defence lawyer James Leonard argued the “only logical explanation is that that they [the cyclists] were not all exactly behind each other”. He also questioned why the rider at the front had not warned any of the riders behind when he saw the vehicle.

“As night follows day, the cause of this impact was the position of the cyclists,” Mr Leonard argued, suggesting his client had left “a comfortably passable gap” and the riders “should have been able to pass”.

He described his client’s driving as “attentive to his surroundings and taking necessary action as soon as he could”.

Following deliberation, described by the Mail as just over an hour and by the BBC as an hour, Mr Gibbs was cleared unanimously of causing death by careless driving.

Judge Richard Kelly called the collision “a tragedy of immense proportions” and said “whatever the verdict, there are no winners”.