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Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Cyclist hurt in "road rage" attack last year dies
John Radford, the cyclist severely injured in a road rage attack last July, has died.
Mr Radford, who was 69 at the time was knocked off his bike after an altercation with Michael Gledhill, 23 on July 31 2013. Last month Leeds Crown Court found Gledhill guilty of causing serious injury through dangerous driving
The crash left Mr Radford in a wheelchair with severe brain damage. Gledhill has not yet been sentenced, but has been told to expect to do jail time.
According to the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Mr Radford was discharged just over a week ago from a specialist neurological rehabilitation centre in York, as his condition had worsened.
He returned to him home in Meltham.
He died during the night of November 4 with wife Pat and daughters Emma and Helen by his bedside.
John Radford was chairman of Huddersfield CTC and a Yorkshire regional representative on the CTC’s national council.
He is credited with spearheading the CTC's Road Justice campaign in West Yorkshire by meeting with his PCC, Mark Burns-Williamson, to deliver the Road Justice report.
Kirkless councillor and former mayor Martyn Bolt, who succeeded John Radford on the CTC national council said: “John was a remarkable man.
“He will be a great loss to the local cycling community. For many years John was a big figure both physically and administratively and he leaves big boots to fill.
“I was privileged to have ridden with him in his last endurance race and he was a man always willing to help others. He will be sorely missed.
“My thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.”
Readers have asked whether the charge against Michael Gledhill can now be changed to causing death by dangerous driving. Under the Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996, this does seem to be possible. However a prosecution under these circumstances requires the consent of the Attorney General. We're trying to find out if such permission is being sought.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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24 comments
It is just so tragic and so fucking unnecessary .... RIP
And just to prove there are double standards.
http://road.cc/content/news/134820-road-rage-driver-convcited-assaulting...
He was convicted of assault. The weapon was a car.
It just so happens the victim was a police constable.
If your victim then dies you can be re-arrested in relation to a further offence. It does not matter if you have been tried and convicted of another offence in relation to the same victim. I only know this as they re-arrested one of the local thugs after one of his victims died in a care home several years after being assaulted with a brick. It's up to the medics now and the inquest. If they say he died as a direct result of his injuries then the already convicted scum bag can be charged.
Despite all that the charge is wrong, this persistent downgrading of assaults that involve a weapon that just happens to be a car is letting people get away with murder IMHO.
RIP John.
^^^^ Wot he said.
Apart from the long period between the incident and the victim's sad death, this tragic case does not seem very different to this one from four years ago, in which the driver was convicted of murder... http://road.cc/content/news/17331-road-rage-driver-gets-life-murdering-c...
RIP John Radford, and my sympathies and condolences to all who knew him.
Whilst I appreciate the strong feelings and sometimes polarised opinions comments attract, please just think for a moment that John's family may read this, and moderate language or perhaps have the debate about the pros and cons of the judicial system on another thread.
RIP John
As the offender has been convicted of dangerous driving, surely proving death by dangerous driving is not a hard sell? assuming the AG will allow it.
A faithful servant to Society, his Community and Cycling who will be sadly missed and fondly remembered by all who knew him.
Should now be retried as manslaughter, or penalty increased in line with death by dangerous driving rather than 'injury'.
How long does it normally take in the UK for sentencing? Over a month seems like a long time to me. But then again, I really have no idea how long it takes in the US either.
This is manslaughter, unless you have an exemption because your weapon of choice is a car.
Probably can't be retried as he has already been found guilty.
Should this now be elevated to at least 'causing death through dangerous driving', or a murder charge?
Year and a day rule:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_and_a_day_rule
That link specifies that (under the section 'England and Wales'):
The Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996 is a short Act of Parliament which abolished the year and a day rule in English law.
The first section succinctly abolishes the 'year and a day' rule.
Ignorant or just stupid? It's not murder at all.
RIP John!
Please accept my most sincere apologies for not explicitly specifying "manslaughter". (Actually, using your vehicle as a weapon to attack someone show 'intent', the marker for murder so FU)
Fucking twat.
Murder, manslaughter.
A matter of proof.
You never truly know what goes on in a person's mind.
A smart way to murder someone is to know where they commute, and 'accidentally' swing your car into them, or make it look like road rage. Either way, you'll be dealt with under laws aimed at drivers, which carry less severe penalties.
It's absolutely the best way to dodge a murder/manslaughter rap in the UK and get off with a comparatively light sentence.
I don't think zanf was ignorant or stupid. Maybe all too aware and making a politicised point about the absurdity of the current position.
Either way, it's not very classy to call people stupid over the internet.
I didn't actually call him stupid if you read what I wrote (as opposed to the response of "Fucking twat" that I got from him).
If you look at the comments of every article on here that involves a cyclist dying, you won't fail to find at least one poster stating that it's murder - it's not in any of the cases.
I think you show little faith in the ability of our police - if it's murder, it'll be very difficult to make it look like an accident and get away with it.
Indeed. You were nice enough to give him an option of being either ignorant, or stupid.
And actually thought that was worth using a retort when being pulled up on your behaviour.
Or very easy, and every shade in-between depending on the personal history, trail of evidence and competency of all parties involved.
Case law isn't black and white.
That's why we have it.
Absolutely. I have said before in another post that to get away with murder in this country all one has to do is find their commute, if they cycle, and take them out with the car. Then stay at the scene and do not talk to cops yet have your lawyer claim that it was an accident. Do 1.5 years in jail at the most and then collect your fee for offing somebody.
This country, the UK in particular has no regards for cyclists at all. We have less rights than farm animals. Police presence is NILL on the and once involved they do not want to do anything. Don't like a cop who pissed you off the wrong way? Wait for him to cycle home and get your payback. You wont do any time. I bet this has the GCHQ tagging me now as a domestic extremist. Fuck em.
not true, knock a cop off and they will move heaven and earth to put you behind bars...
Can't do that. You get tried once and that's usually it. It used to be definitely the end but they got rid of the ban on double jeopardy in some circumstances back in the 90's. But you'd still need new evidence that wasn't available at the time to bring a new case. ie something that the original court had no opportunity to consider.
The rule against double jeopardy has good reasons behind it. It's designed to stop the state persecuting people by constantly charging them with the same crime until a jury gives the state the verdict it wants. It also protects against the state bringing half baked cases because they know they can have another go later or road testing the case in one court and refining it to bring to another court.
To have brought this case now and charge for death by DD you would also have to prove that the death was directly a consequence of the crime. That's a very tricky thing to PROVE in a 70 year old man who dies sometime later.
So unfortunately not.