Auriol Grey's manslaughter sentence overturned for killing cyclist. Correct decision?

[Locutus2000]

Reported in multiple outlets - BBC.

Mixed feelings - it was a complex case with no winners on any side.

A mistake?

She caused an innocent woman's death.

Actions have consequences. If you deliberately set about to make someone fall off their bicycle into the road then they are going to die or be seriously injured.

I think this is the right decision based on what I know of the case, and I think it raises questions about the safety of these sorts of shared pavements.

If the cyclist had been on the road she may have been safer because (a) it would have been easier to regain control after momentarily veering to the side - falling off the pavement probably made it much harder to regain control (b) on the road the car behind would have been expected to leave a safe distance when overtaking, so may have avoided her when she did swerve.

Auriol Gray didn’t kill the cyclist.

A car did.

Whether she made physical contact or not it is quite clear that Grey intended to make ye victim come off her bicycle.

Grey was aggressive and caused the victim to fall into the road. She had no right to do that.

Nasty evil woman.

In reality it hasn't changed the sentence much. It was only 3 years and I thought she'd be out in half that anyway. I felt instinctively that the sentence was about right - her aggression and antisocial behaviour did cause a woman's death, and she showed no remorse, but there were significant mitigating factors. From a strictly legal perspective though I can see how the prosecution overreached in going for unlawful act manslaughter. Manslaughter by negligence would have been a safer verdict. The range of penalties for manslaughter is huge by the way, because its a complicated situation. There's no minimum penalty and the maximum is life imprisonment, though that's pretty rare.

What a stupid thing to say.

They couldn't even find coherent evidence one way or another as to whether this was a legal shared use path or if she made contact with the cyclist. If they couldn't even find those (with the latter, hence why the conviction has been overturned), I wouldn't give them odds on being able to properly assess her capacity for seeing, understanding and assessing risk of a freak set of circumstances such as a bus happening to come along at that point along with the consequences of the act.

Auriol Gray didn’t kill the cyclist

A car did
Her stupid, bordering on thugish actions started the chain of events

She admits in the police interview that she made contact with her.

I think this is a tough one.

The man who pushed the boy off the Tate Gallery was disabled. It’s right that he was convicted.

Looking at the CCTV footage, I’d say it was a deliberate push. She was also not remorseful - as she left the scene and didn’t admit to any fault in her police interview.

This could happen again. This could happen to a child on a bike.

A poor woman with her 2 year old child in the car no less.

Exactly. Given that Grey apparently has no idea what she's doing 🤷‍♀️ what's to stop her forcing a child into the road to their death?

I wonder if people would be so quick to defend her if it was their child she'd done this to.

The local authority said they didn't know if it was mixed use. I remember that being posted at the time of the trial.

I don't make my decision about this case based on one video or snippets of media filtered information from the original trial.

What I do know is that I know a lot less about the law and the criteria for a manslaughter charge than a highly experienced appeal court judge who said it should never have gone to trial.

People I know loathe London cyclists cos they’re so self righteous and aggressive.

Cliches handsomely proved on this thread.

Round my way (inner London) there’s a crossing opp a supermarket where cyclists run the red light every time.

Dangerous for pedestrians, scary, antisocial etc etc. but the cyclists get away with it.

Until they don’t. We’ve had two braindeads (bike crash, no helmet) a year since lockdown 1 put into the hospital for incurables in Putney.

The supermarket started getting big lorry deliveries at night, but the cyclists kept on running the red light. Result: one horrified lorry driver every 6 months, another bunk filled in the coma ward.

The police say miserably ‘We tell the cyclists. We tell them. But they just don’t listen.’

You might not deserve to die for being antisocial, but there’s such a thing as asking for trouble.

The pavement wasn’t duel
use.

@Supersimkin2

I thought the pavement she was cycling on was for both cyclists/pedestrians…

I know a lot less about the law and the criteria for a manslaughter charge than a highly experienced appeal court judge who said it should never have gone to trial.

This.

Although no one seems to know whether this was actually a "shared path" or not, I think it shows that there should be no shared paths like this. It isn't good for anyone.

Her gobby, unpleasant behavior led to a woman’s death.
there are no winners in this case. I have zero sympathy for her, will save it all for the cyclist’s family.
Hopefully the time she has served has given her the chance to learn to control herself.

Just when you think you've seen it all ... I'm cringing for you with such a ludicrous post.

How am I victim blaming? I know I’d think twice if I was riding a bicycle in my 70s and ensure I knew the rules of the road and when to dismount. It looked to me as though Mrs Ward was cycling along gaily almost without a care in the world (as she should be some might say).

This doesn’t negate the fact that she’s a road/pavement user so in order to use both effectively she should know the rules around this as a cyclist.

I used to drive down that road every day, would never have occurred to me that the pavement was for cyclists as well as pedestrians, in fact you mainly see cyclists on the road

A woman with learning disabilities and a one track mind dislike of cyclists combined with an elderly female cyclist and a pavement that may or may not also be a cycle lane does seem like an accident waiting to happen.

No
Cyclists have a responsibility to give way on mix use paths to more vulnerable pavement users ie pedestrians. Just like car drivers have to put the safety of cyclists first (And I know as a cyclist that they very often don’t do that )