To think this woman should not be put in prison?

[Nooyoiknooyoik]

Bizarre and very unfair Link

I agree. She seems to be a victim of a system that doesn't accommodate disability. There is no knowing what she knew, or what a cyclist coming towards her looked like to her. At the same time, I don't think her behaviour was acceptable.

Shes lucky they didnt do her for murder. If she pushed the old lad into the path of an on coming car, then there is intent to cause serious harm or death. I.E. Murder. She could then have used here health issues to get diminished responsibility. She has got off light. Prosecution needs to appeal. 3 years is light

twitter.com/Cinister09/status/1631291726538104833/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1631291726538104833&currentTweetUser=Cinister09

this is a close up of the slighty longer version of the video.

You can see that:

the cyclist was going in a straight line until she was mostly passed the pedestrian;

just as the cyclist was passing, the pedestrian turns her upper body towards her and lifts her arm;

the cyclist’s bike then begins to suddenly tip to the right, then she swerves;

after the bike starts to tip, the pedestrian brings her arm back towards her body.

We cannot see the contact itself, because it is obscured by the pedestrian’s back, but we know that there was at least some contact (because she admitted as much).

Like I said, you can’t prove it was a push….but it looks a lot like one, particularly given the contact admission.

She didn't push anyone into the path of an oncoming car and there is not a shred of evidence for intent to commit murder. The car being right there was a variable she would have known about but couldn't guarantee in a planned murder.

She was certainly able to see the cyclist from at least a few metres away, given that she started swearing and gesticulating a good few seconds before the cyclist passed her.

You've missed my point completely! We don't know what that looked to her. It could have been a dark shape getting rapidly closer in a head on collision in her perception. She obviously knew it was a bike but it's not the same thing as a nimble young man stepping to one side.

She obviously knew it was a bike and where the bike was in relation to her, based on her gestures.

I’m sure the extent of her visual impairment, and the consequences thereof, would have been properly considered at court. Do you have any basis for thinking otherwise?

Court isn’t always fair. We know that.

She may have been poorly represented. She presents as someone unattractive especially in her anger. The judge may have been wrong about the shared cycle/pedestrian pavement. The other woman so tragically killed was older, more frail and appeared more likeable.

Her perception of the threat posed to her may have been magnified by seeing it differently, her ability to process a constructive way to protect herself if believing herself in danger, her clear lumbering inability to step out of the way. All factors that mitigate that wouldn't mitigate with a 19 year old teenager sound in wind and limb. No legal basis but I think accomodations should always be made to allow for difference when it's present, rather than presuming.

@NoBoatsOnSunday

Likewise the cyclist would have seen her coming towards her and being agitated. Most people would have stopped in that situation not carried on cycling until they were abreast of her (no, not victim blaming just seeing it from both sides) so wouldn't have lost their balance and fallen into the road.

It's reported the pedestrian had 'cognitive impairments' but the Judge said she doesn't have a learning disability. Potentially on the ASD spectrum then. That will maybe explain her reaction before and after the event, flapping and also lack of friends which PPs have said means she must be a nasty person. Also lack of diagnosis due to her age as it wouldn't have been picked up in the 1970s.

Obviously speculation but I still can't see anything to say she actually pushed the cyclist in the road. It's reported that she was asked if she'd touched her and and said it may have been a 'light touch' but that probably would have been after a lot of questioning which for someone with ASD would have been extremely difficult and confusing. My ASD DS would agree to anything to get people to shut up and leave him alone.

I stand by that this was a terrible accident and the pedestrian has been treated unjustly. I see there is a campaign already been started for her so plenty of others agree.

You can feel sadness and sympathy that someone lost their life at the same time as feeling that this was an unjust verdict.

This was a retrial as well. Does anyone know what the first verdict was and why?

Her lawyer is a very prominent, senior KC, with particular expertise in murder and manslaughter charges involving vulnerable people. I doubt that AC was poorly represented. You probably couldn’t ask for better legal counsel in the circumstances.

I’d also say that she was quite a sympathetic defendant, as can be seen from the media reaction to her sentencing.

And even if the judge was wrong about whether the pavement was shared or not, that does not excuse AC’s actions (most of which are absolutely plain from the video…save for that she’s probably gotten away with a deliberate push).

We also know that she left the scene, lied to the police and did not show a shred of remorse until sentencing.

It’s hard to see any reason for thinking she has been treated in an unduly harsh manner.

A good lawyer doesn't necessarily know how to secure accomodations for disability - it's quite specialised.

The fact you're judging her on a lack of remorse etc demonstrates the extent to which the court system is geared to favour NT, mentally able people who can process what the right thing to do is and rise to the level of circumstances, as it were. Some people simply can't.

But you’re just assuming all of these things in her favour without, I imagine, access to all relevant information from the trial (which I would fully expect to include medical evidence as to the extent and effect of AC’s disabilities in the context of the case).

Is it not possible, in your mind, that she purposefully assaulted the cyclist in anger?

Or if you accept that she purposefully assaulted the cyclist, are you confident that the extent of her disabilities mean that the guilty verdict and/or sentence cannot possibly be appropriate, regardless of the evidence that was before the court?

I just watched the footage. She pushed her onto the road. She may not have intended for the cyclist to be killed, but she is responsible for the death. I don’t know if prison is the right thing, maybe a care home.

If you watch the footage look at her legs. You can see her using a little force. She definitely pushed her.

I would suggest that you can't tell anything by looking at her leg movements. She suffers from Cerebral Palsy and has reduced mobility.

She was at the trial and had the opportunity to testify correct? Certainly she would have shared that information when she had the opportunity to do so.

People claiming she has cognitive impairment (no idea if this is true): the average IQ of the prison population is 13 points below the national average. Literacy rates are also well below average. If you think that's a mitigating factor, its part of a much bigger problem.

3 years is light. Her excessive aggression directly caused the death of another person. She then left the scene and continued with her day. She is dangerous.

@NoBoatsOnSunday link doesn't work. can you repost? (Thanks)

If she so disabled she doesn't know it's wrong to push someone off a bike (something we teach nursery age kids) then she needs to spend the rest of her life in prison!

To me three years in prison for someone like her seems excessive and useless.

I don't get the "what is the point of her going to prison" comments.

There are a lot of people who maintain that she had every right to do what she did and the cyclist was at fault purely for being there when she (maybe) was not supposed to be. The woman herself shows no remorse for what happened.

There is a very real possibility that left unchecked, she'd have done something like this again. She may not be deliberately murderous but her actions and the continued belief that they were correct, pose a threat to the public.

Her bad behaviour caused a death - that's manslaughter.

Yes that deserves imprisonment.

I simply can’t get my head round what argument people have, when they say she shouldn’t be in prison. Especially, when they say her disability is the reason she shouldn’t be.

Either she has capacity and acted knowing she was being intimidating and should have known her actions caused danger to another person, or she didn’t.

If she doesn’t have capacity and still thinks she is in the right and can not control her actions, she is a danger to the public. She will do it again. Perhaps next time to a victim (some) people feel is more deserving justice. What happens then? She is just allowed to carry on?

Her actions were extremely dangerous and led to someone’s death. It’s really that simple.

You must mean an institution.

I'm saying these things should have been given due weight and they don't seem to have been. No assumptions.