someone tell me what crime has been committed?

[Weefreetiffany]

Baffled by this story

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11810311/Woman-49-convicted-manslaughter-raising-hand-elderly-cyclist-collision.html

on what grounds are the prosecuting the pedestrian? It seems an absolute stretch to think that her gesticulating and “radiant her hand” at a cyclist for driving towards her on a pavement is wilful manslaughter? I can see how it’s a tragic, very unfortunate accident but how did this make it to court?

The atmosphere is this country is so toxic to middle aged women at the moment- what is going on?!

Again @xsquared - you are not allowed to reprimand a cyclist? What if it’s simply a sharp, “Get off the pavement!” ?

I didn't say you couldn't reprimand them if you thunk that bus the right course of action. I said she shouldn't verbally abuse them.

If you think that is the right course of action obviously!

In a situation where anyone acts with aggression towards someone and that results in that person dying the aggressor should be held accountable.

In what other situation with a fatal outcome would anyone be arguing that she should get off scott free, it's shocking.

Having admitted contact I'd suggest she's been lucky that the charge wasn't higher. Pushing someone riding a bike any reasonable person would assume would likely to result in them falling off, even without the traffic that's a terrible risk to take

Dear god how thick are you!!!!

The threshold for common assault is low www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/outlines/assault/

Common assault is when a person inflicts violence on someone else or makes them think they are going to be attacked. It does not have to involve physical violence. Threatening words or a raised fist is enough for the crime to have been committed provided the victim thinks that they are about to be attacked. Spitting at someone is another example.

It is actually about how the victim feels “provided the victim thinks they are about to be attacked”.

If common assault leads to death the threshold of manslaughter is met.

Manslaughter does not require intent like murder. It also does not require life imprisonment. A judge can use leniency in sentencing.

If the perpetrator had shown more remorse the judge may have sentenced differently initially.

Cerebral palsy does not mean the perpetrator does not have capacity.

Road traffic accidents are tricky. When it comes to driving there is strict liability in the form of dangerous driving. If you break the speed limit whilst driving your labouring wife to hospital and kill someone, voila. If you look at a mobile phone call from your distressed child about to be attacked, voila.

The law is the law and the evidence is the evidence. Still I assume this will be appealed. There also seems to be some confusion even amongst legal professionals. There was a lawyer with criminal law background on LBC late this afternoon talking about the case potentially being gross negligence manslaughter… (for which the threshold is higher than common assault leading to manslaughter).

Gosh, I am surprised some are still here. Must be exhausted from all that mental gymnastics needed to victim blame like that.

And justice has really been served by sentencing a partially sited woman with a disability? It was not a shared path, no signage saying so.

Imagine if a car was on the pavement and pedestrian hit side of vehicle, which then swerved onto the road causing an rta, would the pedestrian be responsible? The cyclist had no more right than a motor vehicle to be on the pavement than as a car.

World has gone mad!!

I think this could all have been avoided if there was clear delineation on the path. It’s actually quite hard to know which way to go to get out of the way of a cyclist as a pedestrian. And stressful. What if you’re not paying attention for a moment? There should be a line with cyclists on one side and pedestrians on others. Clearly shared paths don’t work.

Apparently neither the council or the police know whether it's a shared path or not. It's certainly not marked according to the regulations if it is.

Even on a shares path though, pedestrians have priority and cyclists should slow down when passing I'm case they do something stupid.

Someone has posted a picture of the signage further down the road, the important part being that there was no clear end to it, or any indication it actually had ended. There's also minimal requirement for signage in a shared use area, just a vague requirement for 1 repeater. There's also a preference when making them not to mark the floor.

There was a map earlier posted from the council which shows that the whole ring road is designated as car separate to traffic.

Whether the woman had a right to be there or not, the pedestrian had no right to take enforcing her perception of the law into her own hands, and it seems like she may well have been wrong about whether the cyclist was allowed to be there or not.

You cannot be aggressive to someone, which directly results in their death, and expect to escape punishment

Your name says it all...need I say more?

I suspect the 70+ year old judge would have been less sympathetic to the victim.

After consultation with cyclists, pedestrians and experts the general standard for building them is moving towards not delineating them on the ground because delineated encourages cyclists to go faster and pedestrians inevitably wander all over it anyway and you get more conflict.

You do see all types and different markings in shared spaces though, as many different councils have different approaches

It does look like some contact was made right before the cyclist is going into the road. If that is the case (and I wasn't in court to hear full witness statements or see the video frame by frame) coupled with her unwillingness to move out of the way and reaction to the accident and initial lying to the police, I can see why charges was brought and why she was found guilty.

To those who are referring to “aggressive cyclists”, the victim was a 77 year old woman

On the other hand if she hadn't shouted and waved her hands a out would the pedestrian been knocked over? (Dunno not watched the video)

But coming from the perspective of a disabled person who can walk but having to.move sideways or try to get out of the way can leaf to me falling over.

I would be shit scared of a cyclist coming at me as I know I can't just get out the way either.

We have a shared pathway where the pedestrian part is at an angle and the cycle part is flat. I walk on the cycle part as to walk on the sloped part is painful and leaves me liable to toppling over.

I suggest watching the video, she didn't have any obvious problem moving into the path of the cyclist and I would warrant that the average 77 year old would probably have found her quite intimidating and threatening.

Someone deliberately attacking you when you're pootling along is not entirely unheard of but it is unusual enough that you don't think about having to avoid it

@BlackeyedSusan No. The pedestrian would not have been knocked over. She actually moved towards the (slow moving) cyclist to swear and gesticulate at her. As has been stated multiple times on this post, the pavement was 2.4m wide. There was plenty of space for the two of them to pass each other safely.

I can see why you might like to think the pedestrian was blameless in this case but she was not. There was no justification for what she did and her actions directly lead to the cyclist’s death.

If you’re interested enough to comment you should be interested enough to go and check the facts of the case.

I’m just not seeing in the video what others are convinced of, but @Xol has made the most sense regarding the case as a whole.
This earlier comment by @UthredofBattenberg speaks volumes to me:
”I know the cases aren't exactly aligned, but how can this man kill a teenage girl after shouting "move cause I'm not stopping" hitting her with his bike causing her death, get fined £2200 www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1032894/Parents-anguish-killer-cyclist-walks-away-just-fine.html
Yet, this lady gets three years in prison?”
it seems when a car or bike is used and causes death it is minimised away, yet this lady might have lightly touched someone she shouted at, is deemed to have caused manslaughter and gets three years. This is not to minimise the loss of the cyclist and the others involved in the event, but the justice system is unbalanced here.

They see a easy target the disabled, the family get a result they want and all gets paid!

I think the cyclist in the linked article escaping with a fine is shocking. It's also completely irrelevant to the actual rights and wrongs of this case though. There is great inconsistency in sentencing for endless reasons, not all of them evidently fair or justified, however that's a separate issue.

fwiw I do think 3 years is harsh but it's 18 months unless she's planning on misbehaving in prison

I was not commenting on the specifics of htis case as I had not read it, (and said so) more that disability makes you wobbly, you can't always move out the way without falling over and it makes you shit scared of cyclists or cars driving at you on the pavement. (more as a reply to the assumption, by several posters, that everyone can move out of the way) Plus I have seen the result of a pedestrian getting hit by a cyclist and there was significant head trauma to the pedestrian

It’s not a shared path.
Its on the council website as cycle route but there are no pavement / road markings or street signs. Absolutely nothing, ( not today anyway )
Hence police confusion.
There has to be visible signage

Someone posted pics of the signs in this street earlier in this thread. If you look up guidance on shared use design then you'll see there's actually very little official requirement for how frequent signs have to be, just that there has to be one repeater after the area has commenced, and there's no requirement for markings on the ground

Not really - that Daily Mail case happened in 2008 and there was no clear evidence about who was on the path and who was on the road.

Cyclists can be accused of manslaughter, but there is still a difference between how we address deaths by dangerous driving Vs deaths by dangerous cycling. There are examples here.
road.cc/content/news/causing-death-dangerous-cycling-law-coming-soon-295011

But this isn't a walkers vs cyclists case. If the accused had walked into the bike by accident, even carelessly, that would be different.

It's a question of whether you think anyone should tap or push a cyclist into traffic when they're no risk to you. Even if you can't see it in the video, the accused admitted to the police that her hand may have made contact with the cyclist.

I don't get to push other walkers onto the tracks if they jostle me in a train station. Nobody thought it was okay for that woman who was jogging in London to be pushed out under a bus. This isn't a walking vs cycling problem - there was room for both as you can see by the fact that the victim was passing her attacker with clear space between them when she fell into the road (or was pushed).