Auriol Grey conviction overturned

[Icantpossibly]

The original decision split opinion and I have no doubt today’s one will do the same.
I saw the report in The Independent online.
Aplogies if this duplicates another post. I looked and couldn’t see one

There must be thousands of incidents every day where people get angry and shout, swear and even jostle someone else which don't result in a charge of assault. Even though technically they could.

That fact doesn't change what happened. Auriol Grey was angry. It seems clear she has a problem with anger and behaving aggressively towards people. Morally (although not legally) I believe she is responsible for causing the death of Celia Ward and the suffering of the car driver. You only have to watch the cctv footage and the lies in the police interview to see that Grey's aggression caused Celia Ward to fall under the wheels of the car, and that Grey clearly knew she'd done wrong because she lied until cctv evidence disproved her version.

The verdict being overturned does not change the facts.

It’s a bit shit really isn’t it, it’s either assualt or it’s not. I agree people don’t generally get charged with assualt for such behaviour but you’d have thought maybe the reason it’s on the statute books is for such cases? If they’re never going to bother charging people with it then take it off the statute books.

Absolutely there's numerous incidents every day where people behave in an angry irrational way and thankfully nothing tragic results from it.

But what you cite as 'facts' are really opinions - you believe that AG is responsible for the death of CW, I don't share that opinion and neither did the court that overturned her conviction.

The courts aren't there to make moral judgements, just legal ones. And we're all aware that the manslaughter verdict was overturned.

The cctv evidence of what happened is fact, not opinion.

At the end of the day, many people, me included, believe Celia Ward would not have been killed if Auriol Grey hadn't been verbally and physically aggressive towards her. I don't for a moment believe she would have randomly fallen off her bike under a car.

Other people are entitled to their own views and it's clear that some members of Auriol Grey's family and no doubt other people too, don't think she is any way responsible.

"The cctv evidence of what happened is fact, not opinion."

And the CCTV evidence doesn't show that AG was responsible for CW's death - that's an opinion.

So are people really arguing that an experienced cyclist, pootling along slowly at 4.7mph may have veered off the path into the road even if she hadn’t been accosted by Auriol? That the whole thing was a massive coincidence?

The key thing here is the fact that there is no way you'd be prosecuted for assault if you gesticulated angrily at someone.

Therefore you can't be prosecuted for manslaughter.

It's a tragic case, not just for the woman who died, but also the driver who hit her.

Why not? It’s illegal and an offence.

There’s plenty of times people have been charged with manslaughter and found guilty for doing or not doing something which isn’t specifically illegal. There was a train guard once who was found guilty of manslaughter because they said he didn’t check the outside of the train was clear properly before he signalled for it to go, someone was leaning against it and was killed. The guard went to prison iirc.

Oh good grief we're going round in circles here!

The cctv footage is evidence of AG shouting, swearing and making physical contact with CW. The police interview is evidence that AG lied.

AG was not charged with assault, she was convicted of manslaughter which has now beeen overturned. We are all aware of that fact. Legally, she has not been found guilty of a crime.

Morally I (and clearly many others from this thread) believe that AG is responsible for CW's death. Yes, that's an opinion. In my opinion, AG's actions were awful and that if she hadn't been verbally and physically aggressive, CW would not have randomly fallen off her bike under the car.

Other opinions are of course possible!

So we don’t normally charge train guards who are a bit slack on their checks. And the reason this guy was charged was because of the consequences. This seems the same to me.

from reading the appeal decision it seems they are saying her conviction was unsafe because the details of whether she had committed assualt or not weren’t discussed and the jury weren’t told to consider that point. If they had been given that instruction and reached the same decision seems like the conviction would have been safe.

That's not correct. He wasn't just charged because of the consequences of being 'a bit slack' - he clearly saw the girl leaning against the outside of the train but signalled for it to move anyway. He had a responsibility for everyone in the station as part of his role but he neglected it, probably because of some moral judgement he made about the girl's behaviour.

If you're saying that AG was charged purely because of the consequences then you're basically proving the point the Appeal judges made in overturning her conviction.

It seemed to me that what she did would never have reached the threshold for assault so shouldn't have gone further.

No. They're saying that it didn't happen because someone assaulted her. Grey doesn't have responsibility for the tragic death because it was not caused by behaviour that can be defined as assault.

Yeap, legally AG isn't responsible. That fact won't stop many people looking at the evidence of the incident and believing that morally she is responsible for CW's death.

But it would meet the threshold according to the Sentencing Council website, it says someone just has to think they’re about to be attacked. I’d argue the poor woman who died thought just that though i suppose some smart arse barrister would say because she’s dead we can’t know that. Maybe if she’d lived but been badly injured Auriol would have been found guilty of assault because we’d have the victim’s story. How fortunate for Auriol that she died.

"How fortunate for Auriol that she died"

That's a disgusting comment. People are actually losing their morals trying to show how moral they are compared to AG.

I was being sarcastic 🙄. I don’t think I have any worries on whose morals are better, mine or Auriol’s. I haven’t behaved so badly someone has died and then I’ve fucked off and left them. She’s the disgusting one.

It is evident that the decision to release her is correct. There was no base charge, no offence had been committed, and I can't get my head around how jury came to the conclusion she was guilty of manslaughter.

As her defence lawyer put it, swearing or hand gesturing is NOT a crime per se, otherwise you'd have football fans locked up every weekend. The case is tragic, it's sad a woman died but at the end of the day, no offence was committed (not in law atleast). It really is as simple as that.

It's not a question of who's morals are better, you're showing really poor moral judgement with a comment like that, supposedly concerned over the death of this poor woman but you're making sarcastic comments because you're annoyed that some people don't agree with you. You're really not better than AG.

well thats your opinion which you’re entitled to and I’m entitled to mine 😀

And you might not like the point that for Auriol from a legal/consequence aspect she’s probably in a better place because the cyclist died.

Obviously for poor Celia it isn’t, but if Celia had been hurt rather than killed then she could have said in court “yes I swerved because I felt I was about to be attacked”, then Auriol could have been found guilty (not of manslaughter but of assault).

So it makes a mockery of the law and the entire situation that Auriol has benefited from a death as compared to an injury. That’s a fact, not a nice one, but a fact.

Auriol is ND, Mrs Ward was NT. But yes, let’s blame a ND person completely for this, who patently hasn’t had support from a lot of corners.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain in what way could you blame Mrs Ward in this situation? She was on a shared path so entitled to be cycling there. Auriol caused her death, whether that's due to her cognitive ability is in debate but there is no denying her actions.

Talking of a moral compass, FWIW id like to think that I or indeed many other ND people wouldn't dream of being verbally and physically aggressive like AG was, nor would we lie in a police interview under caution or arrest.

Grey has shown herself to be an appalling person in a moral sense though. Her aggression, causing the death of a woman who had Grey cussing and looming at her, thrashing that left arm out repeatedly- and not showing one iota about the death of her victim as she was dying in the road .

Grey's lying in the police interview, and not one mention of her victim..that's very cold and callous.

If Grey has so few morals is she safe to be out unaccompanied?

She has raged at other cyclists and pedestrians according to local reports.

Horrible behaviour.

It wasnt at all clear that it was a shared path. In fact the police struggled to get a definite answer from the Council about its status