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

She should never have been convicted. She probably is a horrible person but that is not a crime, nor is shouting and gesticulating. Its very sad that a woman died, but it was an accident, not manslaughter. On a shared path they had equal responsibility to avoid each other, the cyclist should have dismounted from her bicycle, instead of going onto a busy road.

Yeah, she has a very obvious hemiplegia. I presume part of the reason she doesn't use a stick is that it would tie up her only functioning arm.

@GasPanic I have stated several times that I know her conviction has been overturned. There was no assault charge and therefore there could be no manslaughter conviction.

That doesn't mean that the whole world is suddenly going to believe she's innocent of wrong doing! Having read what was reported in court and watched the cctv of the incident, it's clear to many of us that the cyclist was highly unlikely to have swerved off the pavement under a car if Auriol Grey hadn't shouted and sworn at her and aggressively flung out her arm and made contact.
Falling off the path without any of that occurring would be an accident. This was the result of Auriol Greys behaviour.

The police interview is also very revealing with lies, 'forgetting' etc.

Just because Auriol Grey is not guilty of a crime does not absolve her of responsibility for a death.

She probably is a horrible person but that is not a crime, nor is shouting and gesticulating

But shouting and gesticulating at a person is a crime, it's assault.

@CormorantStrikesBack it certainly can be assault, along with making unwanted and aggressive physical contact. But Auriol Grey wasnt charged with assault.

Morally it doesn't change the situation though; just because she wasn't convicted of a crime doesn't mean her actions didn't lead directly to that death, and destroying the life of the driver.

I am surprised by the people who claim you can’t tell she’s disabled in the videos. The unevenness of her gait is obvious.

No, it isn't obvious, so I'm not in the least surprised that others haven't noticed it.

There is no uniform gait - people walk in different ways and Grey was not moving slowly, the video shows her making reasonable progress along the footpath. There's no evidence in the video that she was veering from side to side or unsteady. If (as has been claimed) she has mobility problems, then it's reasonable to assume she would have a walking aid and had been advised to use one.

Not every disability requires a walking aid, you know.

Yes, I think we know that, thanks. But the claim has been made that she has problems with her mobility, so my comment above applies. In addition, she was on her way to a supermarket (where she proceeded to go on to after she left the scene). As she was presumably intending to walk back after she'd done some shopping, it's surely even more likely that she would have a walking aid if she intended to carry a shopping bag as well. And any balance problems were not evident before or after she waved her arm and gestured at the cyclist, which must have required some force behind the gesture.

People with physical disabilities aren't required to wear or carry something to let other people know.

If people don't know, then they can't be expected to adapt their own behaviour accordingly, such as to dismount on a shared path. It would be easy for a person approaching to just register aggressive body language but not be aware of disability.

I don't think it's relevant, in this case the pedestrian presented an obstruction that needed to be navigated and I don't see how knowing the motivations behind the behaviour would have helped.

Expecting people with disabilities to wear certain things so people know is a slippery slope if you ask me.

Nobody is saying she should wear anything, but there have been many posts suggesting a cyclist should dismount if they see someone with a physical disability. Perhaps the cyclist did not see the disability. If Grey wanted to be treated differently to a able bodied person then she could choose to use a mobility aid to communicate this. Her choice of course.

It is possible that the cyclist panicked when she saw the aggression and made a quick choice to ride past. Crossing the road at a crossing or taking a back street around would have been safer, but she wouldn't have expected to be forced into the road.

The uneven gait could just as easily make a stranger think AG was drunk, rather than disabled, and combined with the aggression could make one very uneasy about getting off the bike to walk around her, rather than just trying to get past her as quickly as possible.

Good point. I don't think I would have felt safe to walk past, and that wasn't considering drunkenness or drug use.

If you are scared of someone normally the last thing you do is move towards them or try to move past them side on in a confined space.

You try to keep as far away as possible, while making sure you never present your side or back to them, for fairly obvious reasons. Most people behave like this instinctively.

If I'm on a bike then the first thing that would come to my mind is to bike past them, as stopping to get off and turn around the bike would take a lot longer and leave me more vulnerable.

The way Auriol moved directly towards the cyclist and waved her arms at her rather than defensively is what makes it hard for me to see her as innocent at least in the moral sense.

From the little you can see on the video I wondered if Celia Ward was too startled to make any decision. It didn't look like there was room to pass on the pavement though. It was a set up that didn't leave any good options for her.

Exactly- A woman looming at one, aggressively shouting and swearing, gesticulating wildly like a fiddler crab would be seen as something alarming to many people.

Yet Grey moved towards the cyclist.

Yes, I think I would do the same. It would depend on how far away I was when I realised what was happening. A bike has momentum, you are already moving towards the other person. You can't quickly stop and turn around to get away from someone, and then you have your back to them as they are rapidly still approaching. If you had time you could turn down a side street and get away that way.

How can she carry a shopping basket and use a stick at the same time when she clearly has limited use of her right arm? Using the leg brace keeps her good arm free.

Use a cross body shopping bag. That's what a lot of stick users do. {I have to use a stick}
OR get shopping delivered.

How do you know what she can, or can't do? Statements have been made on here about 'thinking' that her mother and sister were 'embarrassed' by her, or her mother 'throwing money at the problem' of her daughter. How is this known - or is it (apparently like your comment above) simply guesswork? Do tell us what your qualifications are for making this judgment - I'm sure everyone would like to know.

How do you even know she was wearing the leg brace at the time? And if her balance is that bad that she needs to use a walking aid or has been told to use a stick then surely arrangements would be made for one of her carers (yes, it was reported that she has carers) to do her shopping for her if she has only limited use of her other arm? Which would be preferable - a helper to do her shopping, or Grey not using a stick and being at risk of falling over? There are such things as crossbody bags as well.

If someone can gesticulate violently at another person, then I'd suggest they can't be too frightened about their balance - and the video appears to indicate that Grey moved towards the cyclist when she gesticulated, not away from her as a self-protection motion.

edited for typo

And how does she put items in the bag if her only good hand is holding a stick?

Yes, of course, supermarket staff always refuse to help someone if they have difficulty putting goods in a bag, don't they? 🙄

And I might also ask: if you're saying she can't place items in a bag, how does she manage to pay for the items? She's got to get money or a credit card out of her bag, and presumably put it back in after she's paid?

Really? You would cycle straight towards someone who's clearly annoyed with you for being on the pavement, that makes no sense to me at all.

Yes, she will be doing those things with her left hand, as long as it isn't encumbered by a fucking stick.