A man has been fined for assaulting a 14-year-old boy who he had reprimanded for cycling the wrong way down a one-way street, before pulling him from his bike and stamping on and damaging one of its wheels.
Phillip Smith admitted assault by beating and criminal damage at Boston Courthouse this week, Lincolnshire World reports.
The 51-year-old was walking on Queen Street in Louth, Lincolnshire, at 11.20am on 4 November when he noticed two teenage boys cycling in the wrong direction on the one-way street. According to prosecutor Fiona McLellan, Smith called out to the two boys, with one responding that they needed to ride in that direction to get home.
McLellan then told the court that, as the boys continued to ride on, Smith grabbed one of them by the arm, pulling him from his bike and causing him to fall to the ground. He then stamped on one of the bike’s wheels, damaging it.
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According to the prosecutor, Smith told police that he had felt “intimidated” by the boys’ actions.
Representing himself in court, the 51-year-old said that he is blind in one eye and has a very narrow field of vision and limited depth perception, which he claimed caused him to become confused and “traumatised” by the boys as they approached on their bikes.
Smith, a part-time university tutor, then claimed that he had been simply trying to make them aware of his presence, and that the teenagers responded by speeding up and riding quite close to him.
“At the end of the day this was just kids being kids,” he told the court. “But that was not how I felt at the time.”
After pleading guilty to assault by beating and causing criminal damage, Smith was fined £272 for the two offences, and ordered to pay £100 in compensation for the assault and £108 in court costs and charges.
20 thoughts on “Man stamped on bike and assaulted 14-year-old boy for ‘cycling wrong way down one-way street’”
“Traumatised” into being a
“Traumatised” into being a violent bully.
Classism at it’s finest:
Classism at it’s finest: assault children and claim it was their fault for being ‘hooligans’.
Not sure what the judging was huffing to think that pulling a child from a moving bike is justified by a vague sense of being intimidated, or that then stamping on the bike fits into this fantasy.
Quote:
Yet his vision and depth perception were sufficiently accurate to be able to grab someone accelerating past on a bike…
That was my immediate thought
That was my immediate thought too.
Assault by beating AND
Assault by beating AND criminal damage is merely a fine now? Even against a child?
As an exteacher I always
As an exteacher I always thought that if I assaulted a child either in school or on the street then I would lose my job.
nosferatu1001 wrote:
Yes; if the victim is a cyclist. Cyclists have far fewer rights than normal people.
Is not assault by beating one
Is not assault by beating one of those serious sounding charges which is actually a bit misleading – is it not a sub-category of common assault?
Here the criminal grabbed the 14 year old by his arm and pulled him off his bike.
If it was charged for ‘beating up’ it would have something like eg assault occasioning ABH.
I’d be for charging the man with a more serious offence, but it does not happen. Like the ‘careless driving’ loophole for more serious offences.
mattw wrote:
Yes, assault by beating is simply an assault that involves the deliberate application of force rather than causing the victim to fear the application of force. It can be a very minor application of force, e.g. pushing someone out of the way, or even not actually involve body/body contact, e.g. spitting. For a more serious charge of ABH the victim would have to show some physical damage such as cuts or bruising, which very luckily for the offender appears not have happened here.
This is a good reason to
This is a good reason to formally allow cyclists to go the opposite direction down one way streets unless it’s a particularly dangerous road. Currently, it’s only allowed for those streets with a bit of magic paint to allow cyclists the wrong way, and so we get to this situation where young cyclists realise that there’s plenty of room and it’s safe enough for them to go the wrong way, and some self important prick decides to impose his own will on them.
What’s ironic is that the perpetrator is committing a far more serious breach of laws than the kids on bikes.
I suspect we’ve at least a
I suspect we’ve at least a generation of angry men attacking people on bikes whatever laws we enact…
Classic bully – turn yourself
Classic bully – turn yourself into the victim after starting something.
I agree. One-way streets in
I agree. One-way streets in France are often legally two-ways for cyclists, and traffic signs will indicate this is the case. One-way systems are often put in place to provide extra parking for cars or to discourage motorists from driving through town centres, so it’s only fair that cyclists shouldn’t have to make a big detour because of the traffic system. Incidentally, the cyclist going the ‘wrong way’ still has priority over oncoming cars under the standard priority rules, which give priority to bikes over motor vehicles.
I do wish people would stop
I do wish people would stop repeating the dangerous myth that bikes now have priority over cars. This is a nonsense put about by the tabloids to stir up indignation.
The hierarchy thing is NOT about priority but about vulnerability and responsibility. Drivers of bigger, heavier vehicles are expected to be more careful around more vulnerable users. That does not mean they have to cede priority other than where they normally should – despite (again) tabloid rubbish, drivers have always been required to give way to a cyclist where they would to another car.
So, whilst clearly a driver has no business running over a cyclist going the wrong way down a one-way street, it’s not because the cyclist has priority, but because you’re not allowed to run people over just because you disapprove of their behaviour – which, again, has always been the case.
CyclingGardener wrote:
I think JN35000 was still referring to the case in France, not the UK, where it is generally (though not exclusively) the case that cyclists do have priority, and certainly they do on most cycle lane contraflow one way streets.
Ok, fair point re France . .
Ok, fair point re France . . . and of course a contraflow has priority, but I thought we were discussing cycling up a one-way street without one, technically an infringement even if we think it shouldn’t be. Absolutely doesn’t justify assault of course.
Re overall priority, cyclists certainly have the same priority as any other vehicle would in the same situation – something I wish more motorists were aware of! But I don’t think the ‘new’ rules give us a blanket ‘priority over cars’, although I have seen this suggested in the media. I’m happy to be corrected, but as I understand it the instruction to ‘give priority to cyclists’ at roundabouts, which has been quoted as meaning cyclists now have complete priority over cars and can push in without having to give way, simply means drivers should treat cyclists the same as other road users, giving way when appropriate and not barging through to overtake once they are both circulating.
Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by priority here?
The idea of cyclists somehow
The idea of cyclists somehow gaining “priority” in the updated HC is, as you suggest, a myth being peddled in certain mainstream media to create resentment of the equally mythical “entitled lycra clad cycling mafia”.
Unfortunately, the word “priority” like the phrase “right of way” nowdays often seem to get conflated with the new hierarchy of responsibilities towards more vulnerable road user groups and used by the same media to complain that drivers in particular are being demonised on the very roads they pay road tax to use.
Agree. There have been some
Agree. There have been some sterling efforts by various groups to get the message out (but not quite so much by central authorities that I’m aware of). As usual this reduces in the media / popular discourse to something much simpler and often factually incorrect…
While welcome the HC changes don’t represent (any?) legal changes; they’re more exhortation (“should”) and rephrasing / clarification of what was already there or implied. (The key ones aren’t full law either and still have “issues” eg. are still too wooly on around riding side-by-side and don’t specify 2m overtaking space – just “more space at higher speeds” etc. )
Just in case anyone missed it (you can also search all the stuff here on road.cc!):
The government’s info: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-highway-code-8-changes-you-need-to-know-from-29-january-2022
Overview from Cycling UK: https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle-magazine/feature-explaining-changes-highway-code
FAQ (same place): https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/changes-highway-code-faqs
As a university lecturer
As a university lecturer myself, I am worried not only by this behaviour but also how he treats his students. “Kids being kids” is not the sort of approach that shows any empathy or ability to communicate effectively. Wouldn’t want him on my team.
I live in a one-way street. I
I live in a one-way street. I’ve long since found that cycling the wrong way is much safer than the right way; it’s easy to see traffic coming and move out of the way if you need to, rather than have them behind you being impatient.
It doesn’t work on busy streets with a constant steam of traffic or where cars parked half on the pavement block the view along the street, but on quiet streets with responsible parking it’s fine.
I occasionally get abuse from drivers or pedestrians who are completely unaffected by me cycling past but feel the need to shout at me about rules.
When the one-way system was introduced it was supposed to allow contra-flow cycling. Glasgow City Council’s policy is that contra-flow cycling should be allowed in one-way streets wherever possible, but they rarely actually do. Police Scotland objected to the proposal for contra-flow cycling in a couple of other streets because they felt they were too narrow for it to be safe, so GCC pulled contraflow cycling from all of the plans for the entire area.