Driver of Crossrail tipper truck charged over London cyclist's death

The driver of a tipper truck working on the Crossrail project has been charged with causing the death by careless driving of Brian Holt. The hospital porter was one of six cyclists killed in London during a two-week period in November last year.

The London Evening Standard says that Anthony Howsego, aged 57 and from Romford, will appear at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday.

He was charged in July, but the newspaper says it only emerged that he was being prosecuted when it conducted an investigation ahead of the anniversaries of those six fatalities.

The lorry driver is the only motorist to have been charged in connection with those six deaths 12 months ago. Coroner’s inquests have already been concluded in four of the cases, with no charges brought.

While no date has yet been set for the inquest into the death of Richard Muzira, the Standard reports that the driver of the lorry involved in that incident will not be charged.

All of those fatalities involved large vehicles. Besides Mr Holt and Mr Muzira, a third victim, Venera Minakhmetova, was killed in a collision with a lorry.

Frances Goulding died when he was struck by a coach, while buses were involved in the crashes that claimed the lives of Khalid al-Hashimi and 21; and Roger de Klerk.

Mr Holt, aged 62, worked at Mile End Hospital and was travelling to work there when he was struck by the lorry, which was carrying waste from the Crossrail site at Liverpool Street Station.

Crossrail is one of the biggest engineering projects in the capital’s history, and at its peak will see 50 truck movements a day to take waste away from just one of its 40 sites in London, at Charing Cross.

In February 2012, Crossrail said that lorries not fitted with safety features to protect cyclists such as sensors, Frexnel lenses and sideguards, would be banned from its sites in the city.

But two months prior to Mr Holt's death,another lorry working on the project was involved in a crash that killed a cyclist in September 2013.

Nursing assistant Maria Karsa, aged 21, was killed at Aldgate as she headed to work a shift at the Royal London Hospital, part of Barts Health NHS Trust, Barts Health, which also runs the hospital Mr Holt worked at.

It emerged earlier this year that two of the three sensors on the lorry concerned – required for it to access the Crossrail site – were not working. However, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to bring charges.

This Saturday, the direct action group Stop Killing Cyclists, founded in the wake of those six deaths a year ago, is organising a ‘National Funeral for the Unknown Victim of Traffic Violence.’

Hundreds of cyclists, pedestrians and other road users are expected to accompany a horse-drawn hearse carrying an empty coffin the length of Oxford Street, ahead of a ‘die-in’ and rally at Marble Arch.

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