To think today’s article about Auriol Grey paint a very different picture

[HibiscusBlues]

I was sad to see articles today about the woman jailed for the death of a cyclist. At the time of the offence she was living in a home for the disabled. If this is the case my experience is places like that aren’t easily available.
Shes partially blind, has balance problems and cognitive difficulties after a birth injury to the brain. She’s had related brain surgery.
If this is the case, as her family’s appeal stated, then there does seem a disconnect with the judge saying no difficulties that impacted her actions. Accessing supported living yet being deemed able-bodied and cognitively normal by a court.
Obviously the incident was horrendous for the Ward family, and the cyclist need not deserve to die. It’s a sad case. However the handling of the case is starting to sound uncomfortable. What have others thought of the articles today?

It's a completely different situation that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what happened. It's not apples and oranges, it's apples and golfing umbrellas.

Also, and I don’t mean the OP here, but I do find one of the problems with MN generally is that posters can become hyper focused on a small issue where someone’s behaviour may have broken a rule or not been exemplary in some way and seem to argue this justifies an extreme reaction from someone else. So someone might admit a new puppy jumped up at someone but then that person kicked the dog repeatedly, followed the OP home threatening her and spat at her kids and you’ll still get lots of officious and bossy replies about how awful you are to have a dog out of control and you should send the spitting, aggressive man flowers.

I see that here. In MN land, cyclists don’t use pavements, so the view held by some is that death is a natural consequence of CWs own actions. This is completely wrong. We all have to live alongside others, and sometimes their actions will irritate and inconvenience and annoy, whether that’s annoying pets, people on bikes, loud car drivers. There are ways to deal with these if it goes beyond annoyance and starts to impede significantly on your life. But for the most part it’s a ‘get over it’ thing, accept others will find you equally annoying sometimes.

@Andthatstheend and he convicted her of manslaughter.

I’m not focussing on ‘a small issue’ as a justification, I’ve pointed out several significant issues, in light of the article I read yesterday, that point to the fact that Auriol’s significant cognitive and physical difficulties were absolutely relevant in this case, despite what the judge said.
Which was the question that OP posted in the first place.

Cyclists should not be making pedestrians feel unsafe

And vice versa. A woman died. That's not ok.

Sorry but cyclists generally shouldn't be on pavements. I can't decide to walk in the road safely if a cyclist is coming towards me. That would be putting me in a far more dangerous situation. I admit that I am not particularly in favour of cyclists anyway. I've met too many who think pavements are their personal race track, have had them shout 'get out of my fucking way', cycle the wrong way up a one way street, ride across the road in the dark when I have been driving home. Pedestrians and cyclists need to be well apart for the safety of both. None of the pavements where I live now are supposed to be shared, you would think they were though by the number of cyclists on them.Had there been an actual cycle lane then this incident would not have happened. We need more of these, not shared pavements.

It would be impossible to have an actual cycle lane there. There are houses all along that stretch of road. There’s literally no room for one.

And people shouldn't be killing other people.

If the worst crime that had happened that day was someone riding on the pavement and scaring someone then you'd have a point and I'd fully support them getting an 80 quid fine it whatever the normal punishment is.

But she reacted badly, someone died, and anyone in the world would get in trouble for that

So if she didn't know, then she didn't know the cyclist wasn't allowed there( as it turns out she was) and shouldn't have chosen to confront the cyclist. She isn't the police, it wasn't her right to police the cyclist actions in any way. Had she stayed where she was nothing would have happened she moved towards the cyclist aggressively. That was a choice.

When he's tired my husband can make jerky movements especially with his arms, he believes that AG pushed Celia.

He knows enough disabled people to know that some are very angry individuals who believe that the world owes them, he considers AG one of them based on her history.

Your son's situation is a million miles away from AG's.

I don’t mean you personally, but so many posters on this thread and the other one keep saying things like ‘CW should not have been on the pavement.’ It is a MN thing: to be an innocent victim, you have to be saint like or the other persons behaviour, no matter how awful, will be justified. Even in the time it took to type this, posts have appeared complaining about cyclists on pavements.

That's one of the stupidest arguments on here, and there are many. An involuntary fit causing an incident is just that, involuntary. A deliberate act is deliberate and people are accountable for their choices.

The contradiction being that she doesn't have just physical disabilites,and in fact has serious cognitive issues and brain damage?

So if they couldn't establish in court something that was completely obvious...why should we trust the same courts assessment of the defendants disabilities and how they may have impacted on the case?
We can't is the answer. The judge came off as having a serious bias against her.

The judge said it was obvious. Just like all the people who know that road. 🤷‍♀️

And that cyclists were known to use it. Grey would not have been surprised or somehow wrongfooted by it.

Ultimately AG, apparently in fear for her life upon seeing an elderly cyclist coming towards her on a fairly wide pavement could have stood still. The cyclist would have passed and AG would have been completely unharmed. More importantly CW would be alive.

The judge came off as having a serious bias against her.

That's a very serious allegation. What's your evidence for it?

Its clearly an opinion, I don't need to have evidence for it.

I feel really sorry for the family of the woman who died. It is a awful situation but I was surprised at the sentence.

The fact that so many people are willing to ignore the true victim in this is fucking disgusting. A woman died. A woman is going to jail. The one that goes to jail gets to come out again. The person she killed is dead for much longer than the 18 months she'll be inside for.

The victim blaming that has gone on in these threads is fucking galling

I feel the same re these threads. One person is centred and it’s the wrong person.

Absolutely. The poor woman who ended up dead has been completely airbrushed. A woman who contributed to the local community for her entire working life.

I suspect that the council may have said that because it’s wasn’t formally designated/ recorded as shared-use path at the time. For example, the signage & lining at the time wasn’t compliant with the traffic signs regulations, there’s no Traffic Regulation Order stating it’s a shared-use path, no council committee reports stating the path is being converted to shared-use, that kind of thing. So from a legal standpoint, they cannot confirm it was a shared-use path, even if it has been used as such for several years.

You're accusing a judge of showing serious bias, with all the implications that has for the trial, verdict and sentence, and you don't think you should have evidence?

You don't think opinions in general should have any evidence to back them up?

Well, I guess we all know what they say about opinions....