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.

So that gives this woman the right to force someone into the path of a car?

Because thats what she did

Cycle paths have a habit of being very poorly signed, ending suddenly, having parked cars in them, this wasn't some "Lycra lout" bombing along on his £10k carbon bike but an elderly woman on a shopping bike and judging by the video, cycling at little more than walking pace.

There was no finding of this in court.

I couldn't make any sense of the legal state of the pavement from what I'd read about this. It felt almost like it was retconned as a shared space after these events.

We've got a stretch near us that seems to be unofficially becoming a shared pathway, no signs yet and I've not gone out with the tape measure. Maybe it's a normal thing for bits of the pavement to gradually turn into cycle paths.

I don’t see why cyclists not being safe on the roads means cyclists should be allowed to make pavements dangerous places for pedestrians. There is a hierarchy of road users and likewise should be for pavements - pedestrians should be protected from cyclists, not told to put up with them cycling inches away from them. Just as a car cannot pass a cyclist unless able to give them an extremely wide berth, the same should apply to cyclists passing pedestrians on pavements.

That would only make sense if the bike came from behind her, she wasn’t startled by a bike she could clearly see coming towards her, and if she lost her balance why did she shout get off the fucking pavement rather than ‘watch out’, ‘help’ or ‘be careful’.

As far as I’m aware she never claimed to have been startled or lost her balance, it’s agreed that she didn’t think the cyclist should be on the path and that’s why she did what she did, the only question is whether she physically pushed her or only gave the impression she was going to.

We've got a stretch near us that seems to be unofficially becoming a shared pathway, no signs yet and I've not gone out with the tape measure. Maybe it's a normal thing for bits of the pavement to gradually turn into cycle paths.

It's not a normal thing. It's your council turning a blind eye because they can't be arsed.

The C of A judgement would have been the same regardless of shared path or not.

The conviction was overturned because Aggressive Gesticulations are not a crime, regardless of the outcome......

That would only make sense if the bike came from behind her, she wasn’t startled by a bike she could clearly see coming towards her, and if she lost her balance why did she shout get off the fucking pavement rather than ‘watch out’, ‘help’ or ‘be careful’.

She's partially sighted. You cannot state with certainty what she could see or not. It's a very ableist statement you are making here.

That’s not true. The specific stretch does not have to be clearly marked, ie there doesn’t have to be a dividing line painted on the pavement.

There needs to be a cycle path sign at the start and an end of cycle path sign at the end. Anything inbetween is a cycle path.

If the council don’t put an end of cycle path sign then there is no end to the cycle path from a legal pov. Obviously it’s better to have regular repeater signs.

so this stretch met the definition of a legal cycle path. There was a sign saying it was a cycle path which the cyclist had passed. The cyclist had not reached an end of cycle path sign. So was on a shared use cycle path.

If that was the case then there would have been a clear finding about this in court.

There wasn't.

Shared path or not was irrelevant to the judgement.

We definitely know she saw the bike because she was screaming get off the fucking pavement while moving towards it flapping her arms. She wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t seen it 🤷🏻‍♀️

And yet the judge didn't say this was the case (the cyclist not being allowed on the pavement). The council couldn't decide, and have since put up clearer signs. Nobody can say with certainty she should not have been on the pavement. What is irrefutable is that a cyclist would not be dead and a driver's life would not have been forever changed had the cyclist not encountered Auriol Grey. We don't have capital punishment in this country. You cannot just kill / cause the death of cyclists because they are on the pavement.

I think if your sight is so poor it’s going to cause problems with other people while out and about then you need to make other pavement users aware by use of a stick, if I see someone walking with a stick I’ll shout out ‘I’m just coming past on your left’ or similar because I can see they need more space.

It turns out it wasn't a shared path and in the video stills it doesn't look like one as it is far too narrow

There was. There was a lot of discussion about whether it should have been a cycle path or not but the basic facts that there was a cycle path sign and no end of cycle path sign was found in court. The discussion related to the fact it wasn’t on an official council cycle path record and they weren’t sure where the end of the cycle path was supposed to be but it was fully agreed that legally it’s a cycle path until the end of the cycle path is signed.

Not true. It was a shared path and is still a shared path, now with better signs.

Innocent? Nope. Criminal? Also no.

It can’t be both.

It is now. Shame someone had to die for it to happen.

I do think there's a difference between being gleeful in someone's death, (which i haven't seen in this thread) and talking about the legalities and fault. As the conviction is the subject of the thread, i think it is ok to talk about it without being accused of being happy that the cyclist died. It's possible to have some understanding that there may have been some factors on both sides, or understanding why a disabled person might have felt scared at a cyclist riding towards them on a narrow path and how her disabilities might have affected her behaviour.

Perhaps it would have been wiser for the cyclist to have stopped and allowed the pedestrian to get past the lamppost rather than keep riding. A lot of people are saying AG deliberately moved towards the cyclist but there was a lamppost exactly where this happened so maybe she was moving out to walk past the lamppost. Maybe she did move over to attack Mrs Ward. If Mrs Ward hadnt very sadly passed away i think there might be more discussion over whether she as the cyclist could or should have done something differently. It doesn't mean it wasn't a terrible tragedy - just that it's possible to appreciate this might have just been a tragic accident caused by a factor of different things. Not least that the path probably wasnt shared use seeing as they couldn't produce any official evidence that it was, but the council did nothing to stop people riding bikes on it. You would think that if it had never been officially designated shared use that means it's a footpath. I don't know either way if it was or not but the point is neither did the court.

I think the council is culpable but seem to have got away with it. Obviously, clearly AG shouldn't have done what she did, but the cctv didn't show her pushing Mrs Ward - a slight touch isn't the same as a push. We don't know how fast Mrs Ward was travelling but on a shared path she should be travelling at a speed that it's possible to stop if required. Had Mrs Ward been stationary and simply shoved into the road i doubt the conviction would have been questioned at all - but that's not what happened - there are a lot of complicating factors.

I'm amazed the council have now put up signs to designate it a shared path considering how narrow and cluttered it is and basically - totally unsuited to being a shared/cycle path. I wonder if they did that because of this case and that they didn't want to attract criticism for allowing it to be used as a shared path for so long when it wasnt officially one. A crime needs to be proven beyond reasonable doubt - it wasnt.

The lack of tolerance for sharing our spaces is crazy. We live in an imperfect world, cyclists on pavements (and sometimes shared paths) are annoying and [to some] dangerous, but it takes 2 seconds to let them pass. All this hate is misplaced.

Yes the cyclists who were using it with it not properly marked and possibly not legal really should have pushed for the situation to be regularised, it is always for someone else to do though.

There ,is a footpath are the rear of my house, it is used by parents and children to get to the gate of the local primary. The council decided to split it so cyclists could use it. It isn't wide enough, the cycle part is wider than the pedestrian part I assume as it would be unreasonable to expect someone to cycle in a narrower space. This leaves pedestrians with a narrow space made worse as the council don't maintain the bushes which are on the pedestrian side of the path. I see parents with buggies and a couple of children trying to use this path safely and I can see their safety has been compromised to make a safe path for cyclists. You just can't walk on the pedestrian part of the path with a buggy and keep the older child next to you without one of you straying onto the cyclist part of the path and you see parents having to try to get out of the way or you see them walking sort of sideways pushing a buggy but trying to keep an eye on the 4 or 5 year old behind them. It is a disgrace and I don't blame those parents for their lack of tolerance.

No one ever mentions what Ceilia could have done herself to avoid the collision. Similar to driving a car with having to "plan ahead," you can see a hazard have plenty of time to stop but continue to move towards the aggressive woman.

Even though see did most likely have the right to be there it was a crucial error of judgement.

Thats claptrap, 10s of 1000s of cyclists belong to organisations like UK Cycling and British cycling & campaign for better cycle paths etc but councils do not have to act on their demands.

e.g i recently complained about a very bad series of pot holes on a Sustrans cycle route... (so a road for all vehicles but supposed to be a route to keep cyclists away from busier roads) the response from Devon Council was this....

^We recognise that the wider highway condition at this location is not as we would hope, however, the area is too extensive for our reactive teams to repair as a defect*
(as identified in our https://www.devon.gov.uk/roadsandtransport/maintaining-roads/highways-safety-inspections/">Highway Safety Policy</a>).

As a result we will be using this information to help plan our future works programmes and determine our priorities across the network

The road is so bad that there has even been accidents there but the council do nothing, it'll take a death to make them resurface the road.