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?

You can imagine yourself being aggressive towards cyclists? Well, if that's the kind of person you are then that certainly explains your comments on this thread.

Every time I looked at the facts on this case I saw something that made me question them. There were pretty much question I had on everything I looked at, starting with the nature of the path itself, moving onto the nature of the interaction with the pedestrian and the cyclist, the nature of AGs personal situation and the way she was treated by the system and the nature of certain other information contained in the reports.

Maybe that is typical for a court case. I don't know. But there was a hell of a lot of stuff in there that made me think to myself this isn't right, doesn't ring true or isn't consistent with other information presented.

I'd like to think that I don't have an agenda one way or another. But I guess picking sides is part of human nature.

From my viewing of the short CCTV, even if it wasn't marked as a shared cycle/pedestrian path (and neither the police or the council could agree whether it was or not) there was ample room for a considerate pedestrian and considerate cyclist to pass safely.

Auriol is walking along the middle of the path and as she sees the cyclist, as well as waving her arms, she moves further towards the road. Celia then makes the decision to move further out to try to pass Auriol although she has hardly any room to do so and is probably on the kerb. She also appears to be going so slowly that it would have been hard to keep the bike upright. (You can view slow bike races on Google that show the same of thing.)

Auriol has definitely proved that she was an inconsiderate pedestrian but I'm surprised her actions met the threshold for manslaughter. I am not even sure if there are rules for pedestrians being considerate of cyclists on shared pathways even though the majority of us obviously are.

A 77-year-old woman, cycling at a safe speed on a path that the judge agreed to be a shared pedestrian and cycle way, died as a result of Grey's outburst. The fact that she has some disabilities - for which her sentence was already reduced - does not mean she shouldn't be in prison for that.

I'm not sure about the safe speed. Celia definitely wasn't going too fast! She looks like she was going too slow. So she proved to be an overly considerate cyclist meeting a very inconsiderate pedestrian. Still unconvinced it's manslaughter.

You are deliberately missing the point @Freddie1964 was trying to make. It's not that hard to understand that people can have different viewpoints about this and clearly feel strongly on both sides. There's really no need to be so personal. It adds nothing.

Being scared or startled by a cyclist does not mean you are not culpable if you lash out at them in anger, regardless of whether you have cerebral palsy, a visual impairment or autism.

I don't think she was either scared or startled, she was definitely annoyed when she moved further to the road. The cyclist moved even further to the road, so I think given the limited space, some light contact was inevitable. AG sounds a rather unpleasant person but that is all.

Yes, that is absolutely true. But are there any actual rules to say she shouldn't have done. Didn't she have free rein over the entire pathway. There were no markings on the pathway to indicate one part was for cyclists and one part for pedestrians. Normally pedestrians would not walk into the path of a cyclist as they are likely to come of worst.

Naksu, are you in Holland, or somewhere similar) where there is comprehensive provision of clearly defined and well marked cycle paths. In that case I could understand. In this case the path wasn't a purpose built cycle path, it was a built as a pavement, didn't have signage or delineation so there is no way a cyclist would have been obliged to use. It seems to have been a cycle path more by convention rather than design.

I've seen it fair bit here. There are not many shared paths in my town, but there is a major new bypass where there are excellent well marked cycle paths alongside the pavement, which the overwhelming majority of cyclists use, but you still see a few cyclists on the road. Also a few where there are proper cycle paths just outside the town.

A considerate cyclist would have stopped.

She’s not reckless, lazy or anything else. She’s fucking dead. Which she wouldn’t be if she hadn’t had the misfortune to encounter your heroine. Your victim blaming is off the scale.

Not Holland, where I am its less cycle paths and much more shared paths with no separation (pretty much every single pavement in my town is a shared path, even the ones not officially designated as such are used as shared paths without problems), just a sign at the beginning and end of the pavements

The bit where I was driving had a really nice shared path, really wide and separated from the road by a green stretch as wide as a road, so was so odd to see someone riding on the road, my instructor was amazed. Possibly he was drunk as he was going in a zig zag kind of way.

Here it's more Lycra clad that still use the roads rather than the cycle paths. It's not a large number but a noticeable minority!

Well, the jury, the police, the prosecution (who decided to bring the case), the Court of Appeal and Auriol’s own lawyers (since they didn’t appeal conviction, just sentence) all disagree with you.

If you can actually imagine advancing threateningly on an elderly woman and ‘making contact’ with her (Auriol’s own words) just because you don’t like her doing something completely legal near you, I’m not sure you are safe out in public either.

@Freddie1964 - do you believe that cycling on the pavement, with or without a bag deserves the death penalty - because that is what I am seeing in your posts.

No I don't think that such cycling deserves the death penalty. My point is that AG did not actively cause CW to die. There was no death penalty. It seems to me that some people think that because CW died then AG must be to blame. I just don't agree with that.

OK they disagree. You think that 100% of convictions are safe? You think that people can't reconsider?
Like it or not the facts are that CW was doing something unlawful right in AG's face, was very inconsiderate and put them both at risk.

More victim blaming. You’re unbelievable.

Like it or not the facts are that CW was doing something unlawful right in AG's face, was very inconsiderate and put them both at risk.

And like it or not you can't just kill someone for that

AG made contact with the cyclist, causing her to fall under the car, @Freddie1964. This action caused the cyclist’s death, but you seem to have all the sympathy for AG and none for the cyclist or the driver. You clearly think the cyclist asked to be pushed under a car. Your victim blaming is off the scale.

i like your interesting use of the word fact there.. what fact?? What was CW doing that was ‘unlawful’? She was legitimately passing someone on her bicycle, on a shared path, before she was violently shoved in front of a moving car..

Right at the edge of the screen you can clearly see AG raise her hand, she stops, turns towards the cyclist and leans forward at the point she is passing, her weight shifts on her legs, CW then completely switches direction straight into the road, consistent with a push, then you can see AG’s arm come back down. Because of all that you can actually tell where she pushes her too, she pushes her left side, CW didn’t stand a chance.

it’s all right there on the video... plus AG admitted she made contact with her... when she had ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO TOUCH HER.

The fact is the AG got into the way of the cyclist. I wouldn't have thought this was unlawful not to get out the way on a shared path, but would normally be quite dangerous to the pedestrian rather than the cyclist. The evasive action that the cyclist took caused her to fall into the road. I still feel it was an accident (one like most accidents could have been avoided) but still an accident.

The thing is if she had just been walking along and the cyclist went past and she reacted out of fright then I think you'd have a point Freddie.

It all went wrong for her when she shouted get off the fucking pavement before then acting in such a way that CW did indeed end up off the fucking pavement.