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news
Mellis Road, Mellis, Suffolk (Google Maps)“What the f*** are you doing telling me to slow down?” Road rage driver assaulted cyclist after pensioner waved at him to slow down, handed suspended sentence
A motorist who verbally abused and threatened a cyclist who had waved at him to slow down, before viciously assaulting him during a supposedly chance encounter the following day, has been handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
Philip Turvey was driving on Mellis Road, in the small Suffolk village of Mellis on 15 February 2024 when he attempted to overtake a cyclist, who gestured towards him, indicating that he should drop his speed, Ipswich Crown Court was told this week.
After passing the 67-year-old cyclist, Turvey – angered by the gesture – stopped his car 50 metres later, blocking the road. According to prosecutor Godfried Duah, the driver rolled down his window and asked the cyclist: ““What the f*** are you doing telling me to slow down? I’m doing the speed limit.”
58-year-old Turvey then got out of his car and shouted at the cyclist to “come on and fight me”, before swearing at the pensioner and telling him to “go back to Africa”.
The following day, Turvey was preparing to take his dog for a walk when he met the cyclist, allegedly by chance, having parked his car outside his home, the East Anglian Daily Times reports.
As the cyclist left his home, Turvey confronted the 67-year-old, demanding an apology, before shouting and swearing at him once more and grabbing him by the throat.
At that point, the victim threw his bike forward to create space between him and Turvey, making contact with the driver’s car in the process. Turvey grabbed the cyclist’s throat once again, telling him: “I’m going to kill you”.
The 58-year-old then punched the cyclist several times in the face, leaving him with bruising and swelling to his mouth. In a victim impact statement read to the court, the cyclist said he was fearing for his life during the vicious attack.
At Ipswich Crown Court this week, Turvey pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm. He was handed a 15-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to undertake a 20-day rehabilitation activity and 60 hours unpaid work.
He was also banned from contacting the victim for two years and told to pay £250 in costs and £500 compensation to the cyclist.
“This was a road rage incident which shouldn’t have spilled over into the following day,” judge Nicola Talbot-Hadley told the motorist, who claimed the court that he was remorseful and wished he hadn’t behaved in such a manner. Turvey also said that he has now put his house up for sale and is looking to leave the area.
Unfortunately, similar road rage attacks on cyclists – including those who gestured at motorists to drive in a safer manner – are all too common in the UK.
Last year, a female cyclist was assaulted by a motorist in Bristol, who followed her before attacking her and kicking her bike after she gestured for the driver to give her space on the road.
The 20-year-old cyclist was riding on Bristol’s Shaldon Road on 10 April when she attempted to warn the driver of a black Land Rover Discovery that he was driving too closely to her.
The cyclist’s gesture, however, seemingly incensed the motorist – a man in his late 50s or early 60s – who then followed the 20-year-old before getting out of his car and assaulting her.
The man also kicked the cyclist’s bike and shouted obscenities at her during the alarming road rage attack. The motorist eventually drove off after three women came to the victim’s aid.
And in September, a 37-year-old man was arrested and charged with assault following an incident in Edinburgh, the video of which went viral on social media and showed the moment a cyclist was thrown to the ground by a driver who slammed the victim’s head against the road.
> Police make arrest after sickening footage of cyclist slammed to ground by driver goes viral
The video, which was viewed more than 26 million times on X/Twitter the weekend it was posted, shows a cyclist standing front of a vehicle as its passenger remonstrates with him in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
A male driver then got out of the vehicle, before walking up to the cyclist and grabbing both hands around his neck, slamming the rider off his bike and hitting his head against the road.
Afterwards, the passenger and driver returned to the vehicle, which had a learner plate in the front windscreen, while the cyclist was seen holding his head and lying motionless in the road.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 13 min 51 sec ago
Or just run them over with your car. You'll probably walk free.
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Perhaps they've given up wearing platform shoes?
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Jeez you're all cynical... ...
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I have this light, I agree with every point made, it's a good solid light that's overkill for 95% of it's use (good for taking the dogs out for a...
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@mtbtomo We're stoppping at Fodele Beach this Summer! I trust it was a good hotel? Moreover, I've booked my bike and would love to know if you have...
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20 comments
Regardless of discussions on other punishments, how on earth is there not a driving ban.
The goal of jailing someone is protecting the public, which can be achieved here by stopping them getting road rage driving...
I would guess because the original road rage offence would be very hard to prove without video evidence (also I've been told several times by the police and CPS that if there are two offences they prefer just to charge the most serious one), and although the assault clearly followed on from the original incident it did actually occur when the perpetrator was a pedestrian and so much as I agree it would be desirable for him to serve a long driving ban it wouldn't be justified under the law.
He told the victim to "go back to Africa" then came back the next day and beat him up? How is this not racially-aggravated assault??!?!!!
Because cyclist
Telling certain people * to "go back to africa" - even if they didn't come from there - was government policy recently...
Also - perhaps this is just the justice system seeking consistency - if they're not going to lock people up for hitting others with their cars, why should they lock them up for hitting them with their fists?
* Ones without a medical qualification or an invite to study at the University of South Neasden, that is. We probably don't want folks who've overstayed their welcome though (e.g. lingering here after they came over to work post-WW2).
Good to know that should I want to attack someone, I can wait till he ride his bike and attack him and get away with 20-day rehabilitation activity, 60 hours unpaid work and a 3 digit fine.
Or just run them over with your car. You'll probably walk free.
Frankly, I would like suspended sentences to be modified to being one week in prison and the rest suspended.
I don't want people spending their lives in prison, being further indoctrinated and trained by the range of mindless (and, worse, mindful) thugs that dominate the prison environment. I would rather that a suspended sentence required some active involvement in community-based anger management, retraining (road sense), and worthwhile community contribution than time and lives were wasted.
If prison is necessary to protect society at large, then so be it, but otherwise it is largely counter-productive, expensive, inefficient and poor at addressing recidivism.
Don't get me wrong: when people cut me up, threaten me or assault me, I want to hang them up from the nearest gibbet by what's left of their test tickles after I've repeatedly kicked them there. But that's me, that's revenge; it's not society, and it's not punishment or correction.
That said: that week in prison? That's to let people know what it's really like. Keep out of here, because we only put OCG and unstable people here; either is likely to put your head on a spike while you're still trying to use it.
Meanwhile, I want proper ongoing training to be required to maintain a licence. You have to attend relevant courses, which you must complete satisfactorily to gain the credit, or your licence is suspended. These will include attitudes to other road users, anger management on the road. And satisfactory completion will include an attitude test. Course providers must demonstrate that they don't just pass you when you walk in the room.
When I am world
dictatorpresident, these things shall come to pass, Day 1. And out will go owners with dogs on long/extendable leads. The gibbet is too good them!Not sure tickling is much of a punishment!
The introduction of digital licences does seem to give a way to interface with the car system to prevent banned drivers from driving.
How can you tell if a girl is ticklish?
Give her a couple of test tickles and see if she laughs.
So what have we learnt from this? Tough new laws on cycling - that's what we need...
The "war" on motorists continues unabated obvs
I mean, fucking hell. Everything about this screams angry scumbag that should be in prison for some time and should have his license taken away. He doesn't seem to understand that staying under the speed limit doesn't make you safe or mean you are abiding by the rules.
So far we have:
Racism, threats, road rage, assault. I'm sure he will have learned his lesson though with such a stiff punishment. Pathetic excuse for a human being and pathethic punishment.
Assault a cyclist, appear to be remorseful in court, don't go to prison. Good to know, thanks Ipswich Crown Court /s
I'm sure if I totally lost my shit with an OAP driver, blocked them, threatened them and racially abused them, then "accidentally" found them the next day, pulled them from their car and beat them up I would get a suspended sentence…we seem to have moved on from what we all knew was the case already, that you can pretty much do what you like to somebody with a car, to you can pretty much do what you like as long as your car is tangentially involved in your psychotic behaviour and still stay out of jail.
By the way does anybody (chrisonabike?) know what happened to the driver in the Edinburgh assault mentioned above? I can only find out that he appeared in court shortly afterwards and was bailed to appear at a later date, has he not been tried yet?
It's all quite quiet up here on that scumbag, Rendel.
Rumours have it that the seman stain that was driving has the car on motability and that Police Scotland have made the scheme provider change this piece of shits car due to doxing risk... FoC of course.
Rumour also has it, that this waste of DNA is well known to the PS .. but is unlikely to face serious charges.
How much is true .. who knows.
But, everywhere is quiet.
Yup - trail (officially) gone cold. It may just be because the courts work in their own sweet time. It may...
As the cyclist left his home, Turvey confronted the 67-year-old, demanding an apology, before shouting and swearing at him once more and grabbing him by the throat.
The 58-year-old then punched the cyclist several times in the face,...
......has been handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence.
SUSPENDED!? Incredible. Just who does he know? The local chief constable? Goes to the same lodge as the judge?
I bet he's glad it was only a cyclist, not someone important, like another driver. If it had been anyone else, they'd be banged up by now. Can you imagine what sentence you'd get for assaulting someone and threatening to kill them: unless it's a cyclist. But people who go on peaceful protests about humans destroying the planet get five years.
Our laughably called "justice system" stinks, but after the news today that the planet is now 1.75 degrees C hotter, we're all f****d anyway.
I'd presume the clearly has anger issues driver was on a first offence and prisons are full.
But be thankful you don't have to share the roads with people like that.
You make an interesting point here; a threat to kill is a serious offence in its own right. The challenge for prosecutors being to prove that the offender meant it at the time, or that the victim genuinely feared for their life in the moment.
Having someone follow you to your home, grab you, hit you, and then threaten to kill you, would in my mind make it a more than reasonable for the victim to believe their life was genuinely being threatened.
I'm interested to know why this wasn't taken further. I'm also surprised the racial element was not taken into account.