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news
David Williams crash 1“If the weapon had been a knife or baseball bat the driver might be looking at a prison sentence”: anger over hit-and-run driver's assault on cyclist
A hit-and-run driver who knocked a cyclist off his bike in London’s Richmond Park has been fined for careless driving – although many who have viewed footage of the incident now posted on Twitter have expressed shock that the charges the motorist faced were not more serious, given that it appears to have been a deliberate act. The victim himself has said that “if the weapon of choice had been a knife or baseball bat the driver might be looking at a prison sentence.”
The incident happened last November, and left cycling instructor and bike mechanic David Williams with a broken collarbone.
He said at the time that a slow-motion edit of the footage he had captured left him in no doubt that the driver knocked him off his bike on purpose.
The driver, Adrian Stephney, appeared at Lavender Hill Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention.
According to the Twitter account of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Royal Parks Police unit, he was fined £418 fine and ordered to pay £110 costs as well as a £42 victim surcharge. His driving licence was also endorsed with 6 penalty points.
A driver has been convicted at Lavender Hill Magistrates Court for driving without due care & attention after he collided with a cyclist in #RichmondPark He was fined a total of £570 and given 6 points on his driving licence (£418 fine, £110 costs, £42 surcharge) pic.twitter.com/NzvAqVntaF
— Royal Parks Police (@MPSRoyal_Parks) May 25, 2022
Now that the court case has concluded, Williams, who had been returning home to Long Ditton through the park after leading a cycle training session in Mortlake, has posted footage of the incident to Twitter.
The highlights of a lunch time ride in Richmond Park in November. Apparently, this is only careless driving. https://t.co/QvfPbdLNJe
— Bigdai🍷🍺🚲🏴🤘 (@Bigdai100) May 25, 2022
In a statement sent to road.cc following sentencing, Williams said: “I am pleased the criminal case has concluded and I am grateful for the help and support of the Parks Police officers in this matter.
“I am disappointed that the Metropolitan Police Traffic team and CPS could not charge the driver with a more serious crime. I am disappointed that the Magistrate could not have handed down a stiffer sentence.
“I believe that I was assaulted in a moment of rage by Mr Stephney and if the weapon of choice had been a knife or baseball bat the driver might be looking at a prison sentence.
“This and other cases highlight the casual acceptance of road violence by the justice system and society in general.
“In the UK approximately five people per day are killed and many more are seriously injured as a consequence of dangerous driving yet it seems to be accepted as ‘one of those things’, a cost of doing business.
“Driving a motor vehicle is judged to be a right, not a privilege that should only be afforded to those that keep other humans safe.
“I endured nearly 3 months of pain and discomfort, I wasn’t able to work for much of that time with the consequential loss of income in the run-up to Christmas which caused anxiety and disappointment.
“I am lucky I have a support network who could help me day to day because I am a father, husband, brother and son, all those things that my family came close to losing.
“Three weeks after getting back on the bike, I was hit again by a driver coming too close, there was no intent or serious physical injury that time but more anguish at what might have been at the actions of another driver whose entitlement valued moments of their life more important than all of mine.
“Both events have severely shaken my confidence to keep myself safe on the roads of SW London,” he added.
A number of people on Twitter expressed incredulity that the charges brought against the driver by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were not more serious.
That's how I saw it, and the people behind
— Bigdai🍷🍺🚲🏴🤘 (@Bigdai100) May 26, 2022
And, on top of this, any use of a car to deliberately cause a collision should be assault or attempted murder - because that's what it really is.
After all, there's really no logical difference between deliberately driving into a cyclist & deliberately driving into a pedestrian
— WhatsTheDope (@WhatDope) May 26, 2022
I wouldn't assume @MPSRoyal_Parks would be happy with that charging decision, tbh. It's CPS who make that call.
— Tim Lennon (@lucullus) May 26, 2022
At the time of the crash, Williams told Kingston Nub News: “I have had some close scrapes in my time, but this is one where we came off second best.
“I was heading along Queens Road in the park towards Pembroke Lodge. Traffic levels were fairly normal and several cars went past me at a safe distance, although maybe faster than they should have been going.
“This one car, a blue BMW, went past me and was really close. I slapped the boot to let the driver know how close he had been.
“He immediately braked quite sharply. I wasn’t able to stop but filtered along the road between the car and grass and ended up in front of him.
“Immediately, he then accelerated and came alongside me – about a foot away. I rapped on his roof to make the point he was too close and get him away.
“He accelerated again and swerved in towards me, knocking me off balance and I fell right onto my shoulder into the road. He then sped off down the hill.
“I was lying on the ground in shock and pain. Several people, including the drivers behind, stopped and came to help me. Luckily an ambulance was coming up the hill towards me and they stopped.
“Within a couple of minutes the paramedics were helping me. I was lying on the floor for 20 minutes or so, they put a sling on my arm and I was taken to Kingston Hospital.
“The people in the other cars behind me were shocked. This was not an accident. They probably thought they wanted to scare me, but the consequences are very serious for me.
“My head hit the floor quite hard and my helmet is now finished as it has a big crack in it.”
His injuries, which besides the broken collarbone included severe bruising, forced Williams to take several weeks off work and he confirmed in a tweet that he is pursuing the driver for compensation through a civil action.
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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45 comments
"...he confirmed in a tweet that he is pursuing the driver for compensation through a civil action."
Good. Take his insurance for every penny you can get to make sure his premiums stay high for a very long time.
Can't believe it. That is nothing like a punishment for someone who deliberately drove into another road user. This is an intentional attempt to damage or injure another road user isn't it?
The fines and penalty points don't seem to match the offence. Yes, it does look as if that was deliberate. But at the very least, the driver was actually hit with penalties of soem sort and will probably think twice about doing something so stupid again. So many hit and run drivers simply get off with driving offences, even when there is video footage.
It's also an offence code that heavily loads insurance for five years
So why isn't the person at the wheel of the car identified in this story? Cars are driven by people. People have names. Identifying the person at the wheel as simply the "driver'' just continues the allusion that people at the wheel aren't responsible for what the vehicle does.
"Illusion" not "allusion"'; they're rather different. But otherwise spot on.
What is extraordinary, although hardly a surprise, is that Googling to see if the driver's name is revealed elsewhere reveals that apparently no other news outlet has covered the outcome of the case (a few reported the original incident). Imagine if a cyclist had deliberately smashed over a pedestrian leaving them with serious injuries and there was a video of it, it would be on the front page of every tabloid alongside opinion pieces demanding licences, insurance, road tax et cetera.
The article's been updated to include the driver's name, now; clearly someone at road.cc towers has been doing some serious googling...
Unusual name so fairly easy to track down online, his LinkedIn profile says: "I have the drive and the commitment to face any challenge head on while thinking clearly and reacting sensibly under pressure." The irony!
£570 fine and 6 points for deliberately hitting someone and leaving the scene.
That's ridiculous.
CyclingMikey regularly reports people getting similar penalties for looking at their phone or driving the wrong side of a traffic island, and those incidents don't involve anyone getting injured (or the intention to injure).
Driver should no longer have a licence and should have received a custodial senttence (even if suspended).
Interesting.
No separate charge for failing to stop at the scene of an accident?
Police chargeable offence. I would have used it here. I would also have referred it to CPS for authorisation for a dangerous driving charge due to the fact it looks deliberate rather than a momentary lapse in driving standards (the close pass followed by brake check looks dodgy). The failing to stop at the scene of an accident should be seen as an aggravating factor as it means that the driver can't be breath tested or drug tested (or interviewed for that matter).
Assault isn't charged for driving offences usually as per CPS charging standards. Notably if you get "Causing serious injury by dangerous driving" the sentence is roughly equivalent to the sentence of actual bodily harm or causing GBH without intent (s20 OAPA). Getting a charge for GBH with intent (triable in indictment only, theoretical maximum tariff of life imprisonment) is a whole other level of complexity, which is why the driving offences exist and technically have a lower bar.
What you don't tend to get in this sort of story though is a lot of nuance and it ends up with speculation. For all I know the officer in case did put the case to CPS and they decided to go for the lesser charge (going for the easy option is often used because it prevents a trial and trials are expensive, uncertain and the CPS are judged on their win ratio.)
I hope that the cyclist involved is recovered and that the story doesn't descend into a spiral of victim blaming and what aboutery which is the usual trajectory for the road policing results I post.
(Strange how the interest lobby didn't want to stick up for the drug drivers we arrested after a pursuit last week, poor innocent motorists set up by the fuzz etc.)
Ah, that makes sense. There was someone charged with this in the Thames Valley area recently...
https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2022/may/23-0...
Why if the serious injury is caused by a driver deliberately using their vehicle as a weapon is the sentence equivalent to GBH without intent? If anything that would seem to reinforce the message that using a car as a weapon isn't as serious as using a knife/baseball bat/fist as a weapon.
Well, if the penalty is similar, but the burden of proof less, then I can see why this is the charge the CPS will go for rather than assault. I hadn't appreciated that before.
I can also see how proving intent might be more difficult when the perpetrator is hiding behind the privacy glass of a motor car, than swinging a baseball bat out in the open for all to see. Ideally though, it should be treated the same, because it is the same.
Intent is a very difficult thing to prove. Remember the burden of proof is on the prosecution.
it is why attempt murder is the single hardest charge to prove on the statute, much harder than actual murder... for murder you only need to prove they intended or foresaw their actions would lead to serious harm, for attempt murder you need to show beyond all reasonable doubt that the intent was to kill. That's why anyone who says "that should be charged as attempt murder" generally doesn't know what they're talking about in criminal justice terms.
Driving offences don't require intent or any mens rea, just that the standard of driving is FAR below that expected of a careful and competent driver. Check out the CPS charging standards for more.
I'm going to refer again to this timely link:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/27/british-soldier-who-mowe...
Driving at speed at a group of pedestrians might seem like a clear attempt murder, but note that it's charged here as a S18.
Also the comments about the car being seen as less of a weapon - I've seen offences where a suspect has stabbed someone multiple times in the torso which were charged as S18 and not attempt murder. It's not as easy as they make it look at the telly. It's nice to make comparisons but sometimes they're not realistic. You might also want to take a look at your local newspaper to see how low the sentences generally are for common assault and ABH
Ps as well as being a neighbourhood inspector I'm also a Detective Inspector so I do know a bit about this stuff. But I've hung up the winkle pickers and all about road safety and burglary now.
Yes, thanks for the insight.
Interestingly, in this driver in the Guardian articles case, he had been charged for assault with a weapon (bottle) 3 years prior to this driving charge. That resulted in a suspended prison sentence:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/arm...
edit: it's just dawned on me the irony of his mitigation in that previous charge - that he was a 'rare' driver (albeit of a warrior tank).
Is it basically that we still somehow need to show intent even in dangerous driving? Do we essentially understand "injure someone without a car - it's quite probable you meant to do it. Injure someone with a car - it's almost certainly an 'accident'"? Vehicles make it so much easier for a "mistake" - often "NFA" unless there's an injury - to become an injury "in unfortunate circumstances".
I imagine proving intent to the average jury (e.g. "deliberately manouvering with the intent to cause injury the cyclist") in the face of our prevailing understanding / beliefs about driving is very difficult.
Oh - and in the case of cyclists there's the old "they threw themselves under the car" defence of "they suddenly swerved / wobbled / fell off / dropped from the sky like a sack of potatoes".
Actually it seems all you have to do is say "I can't remember" unless there are plenty of witnesses (footage not enough, I think). Given that and/or "medical episode" (neither seems to provoke "if that's true you must then hand in your licence"...) and it's a wonder that anyone is ever held to account for the consequences of their driving.
Can't believe you left out 'the sun was in my eyes'
If only I could have a skip following me in sunshine.
Apologies - I didn't see that one.
It sometimes is, but the offence would look something more like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/27/british-soldier-who-mowe...
Cant comment on specifics of this case as I don't know any more than I've read on here and seen on the video
Thanks for this - it's useful. We can direct our ire at the CPS and their standards/definitions, rather than the police, in these instances. Will write to my MP.
Thanks for the reply and background information to charges.
Agree, appreciate your taking the time to explain.
I just can't believe they've got the same number of points that you'd get for driving without insurance or looking at your phone in a queue.
Even if you very generously accept this was careless driving, you've got to think it's at the upper end. A court can impose 3-9 points for careless driving, so why did they not get the full 9 points?
For the driver of that car, I have no doubt that the fine will be loose change.
As for the failure to charge them with a serious offence, that is proof incontravertible that our laws are not fit for purpose, and have not been for many years. Never mind, the government's thorough review of road laws will be along any day now.
The fine will be loose change but the penalty points will result in higher insurance premiums and will be a constant reminder of the need to drive properly.
One would hope that the insurers would watch the video and in the basis of what they have seen, cancel their insurance and refuse to insure them in future.
Now that would be a world of pain trying to renew, especially with their exchanging of information between insurers
You would hope so, but what's the chance instead it just gets fed into the overall risks of offering cover so we all pay?
The old model was actuary based on probability as you suggest. Best practice is big data i.e. actual event data collection and processing to rate the risk of underwriting a specific risk. Less weight to social media than court proceedings, obviously, but some weight...
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