UPDATED: Essex road rage van driver hands himself in, but cyclist declines to press charges

racyrich wrote:

The cyclist does society a disservice by not proceeding with charges. The sort of disservice that encourages the assailant to carry on in his thuggish ways.
Women have been doing the same for years, letting domestic abusers carry on until the thug kills them or the next gf.

And yes, the cowson's van has no MOT. https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ NC56 FMP Ford

Edit - actually, it's being driven on a SORN. So driver and owner are breaking the law.

Amazing detective work...but you'd better stop now, you're embarrassing the police!
Perhaps the DVLA should have one of those 0800 numbers.

HarrogateSpa wrote:

Quote:

No disrespect intended, but we rarely get more than one side of the story.

It's interesting to have the police view, and I hope you'll keep posting.

However, in my opinion, there is a problem with the police approach to road incidents involving cyclists - overall, and this is necessarily a generalisation. Cyclists don't feel that the police are sufficiently willing to take action to sanction careless, reckless, or even deliberate actions which put cyclists in danger. We're not imagining it, and we have example after example.

It is certainly a natural reaction for the police to be defensive, and no doubt you correctly think that non-police don't understand all the difficult issues you face.

However, it might be time to stop being defensive, and take an honest and hard look at whether actions taken by the police are enough to protect vulnerable road users. Do you too often decide not to take any action, because it's easier, it avoids paperwork, or because there's an in-built sense of identification and sympathy with drivers, and a mistrust of the 'out-group' that cyclists are?

You have assumed wrongly. By 'we" I refer to readers of this forum who only get to hear one side of the stories that you mention. In my opinion we get anything but a balanced view as we don't hear the full circumstances, nor the from the other other party, or from the police who were involved.

What so often happens, and is happening on this thread, is that a mixture of police haters and police mistrusters criticise their actions, and those of the justice system in general, more often than not on very little or no information.

Just a couple of examples -
The police have been embarrassed about the MOT issue. How on earth do you know what they've done or haven't done and why would they tell you?

That the cyclist was threatened or coerced into not pressing the matter. What factual basis is there from the information available?

It's all guesswork and assumption. One big assumption is that he reported it at all - perhaps a witness called in and police attended the scene, but because the driver isn't clapped in irons you all assume nothing is being done.
It says that there is a reported personal injury accident, therefore the matter of driving documents will be in the pipe line (so where's the embarrassment?)

Let's for a minute (humour me) assume' that the police didn't attach wires to the cyclist's testicles in order to persude him not to make proceed with any allegations (or one or some allegations as it's all guesswork) we're back to looking at what can be done to bring about a prosecution without the aid of the cyclist.
We don't even know if he told them about the video.

So, the driving issue - I expect so if you can get the video accepted into evidence without the cyclist who made it because defence will have that thrown out and you've wasted public money.

The smoking - tell the local council, that's their remit.
The phone - you can't prove it unless he admits it.
The assault - without the cyclist he'd get off - yes he would.

So as I see it you have no facts that support an attack on the police - but we can't let fact get in the way of a good story can we.

Kadinkski wrote:

Yesterday, before the social media storm the police said "We're aware of a You Tube video of a cyclist being assaulted + would advise the victim to contact police on 101 so it can be investigated"

Its reasonable to assume that at that stage they had done sweet FA - not even spoken to the ape that could have killed the cyclist with his 3 tonne van.

No, not reasonable to assume that at all.
Essex police made a very sensible response. The scene was later identified as as within the MPD who later confirmed that they had a report of a PI accident and that the cyclist didn't want to proceed with a complaint re assault.

That is all we know, everything else is conjecture and in some cases I suspect complete fantasy. As said before, you don't even know if the cyclist told them about the video.

You're left with a minor injury accident report which would not involve speaking with the driver at this early stage.

So no police fail there from from the facts - but keep at it.

I know those tyres mean that you can ride a bit off piste, but that doesn't include this forum too.

Redvee wrote:

Whoever deals with the fleet of vehicles at the landscaping company is for the high jump. The van was SORN'd in September and no MOT either.

http://t.co/UcQT8klXDJ

...which also means it was not insured. Those are charges the police can use without having to have the cyclist make a complaint.

I dont believe people are "attacking the police" I think there is simply an understandable desire for cases like this to be taken far more seriously than they appear to.

Id certainly feel a lot less safer riding a bike by myself if we just decided that its ok for people to leap out of their vans after forcing you off the road to punch you in the head, and the police wouldnt do anything about it.

remember if all the things you said were happening or had happened there would be a record of it on the police system. Essex police wouldnt need to ask for anyone to come forward, they could check the national database and respond with a simple, we are aware of the incident our colleagues in the Met are dealing with it or have dealt with it, case closed. but they didnt.

as for the phone proof, it would be simple to prove there was a call taking place on that phone at that time.

and remember the law says "using hand held phones" it specifically doesnt restrict itself to just you cant hold a phone to your ear and have a chat, simply using it counts, which is why all those people who sit with mobiles in their lap trying to chat on speakerphone get fined too

the only dispute would be the timestamp on the cyclists video neednt be accurate, but Im sure there are alternate apnr cameras that will have timestamped the van (and maybe flagged its lack of MOT/SORNstatus etc who knows) in the area

Eebijeebi wrote:

Kadinkski wrote:

Yesterday, before the social media storm the police said "We're aware of a You Tube video of a cyclist being assaulted + would advise the victim to contact police on 101 so it can be investigated"

Its reasonable to assume that at that stage they had done sweet FA - not even spoken to the ape that could have killed the cyclist with his 3 tonne van.

No, not reasonable to assume that at all.
Essex police made a very sensible response. The scene was later identified as as within the MPD who later confirmed that they had a report of a PI accident and that the cyclist didn't want to proceed with a complaint re assault.

That is all we know, everything else is conjecture and in some cases I suspect complete fantasy. As said before, you don't even know if the cyclist told them about the video.

You're left with a minor injury accident report which would not involve speaking with the driver at this early stage.

So no police fail there from from the facts - but keep at it.

Again, this is about perception... and my perception is that you feel it is perfectly acceptable to shrug your shoulders and let this go. Now I appreciate that what happens behind the scenes means its far less black and white as us common folk will see it... but can you not see that in there is the rub?

I go back to my point... there is clear video evidence of a physical assault and no one is going to do anything about it. Can you not see why there is frustration, and why some of that frustration is getting directed at the authorities we the uneducated common man were foolishly of the understanding were there to protect us?

As mentioned, the cyclist in question is doing society a grave mis-service for this blatant advertising of what you can get away with in this fair land these days.

Awavey wrote:

I dont believe people are "attacking the police" I think there is simply an understandable desire for cases like this to be taken far more seriously than they appear to.

Id certainly feel a lot less safer riding a bike by myself if we just decided that its ok for people to leap out of their vans after forcing you off the road to punch you in the head, and the police wouldnt do anything about it.

remember if all the things you said were happening or had happened there would be a record of it on the police system. Essex police wouldnt need to ask for anyone to come forward, they could check the national database and respond with a simple, we are aware of the incident our colleagues in the Met are dealing with it or have dealt with it, case closed. but they didnt.

as for the phone proof, it would be simple to prove there was a call taking place on that phone at that time.

and remember the law says "using hand held phones" it specifically doesnt restrict itself to just you cant hold a phone to your ear and have a chat, simply using it counts, which is why all those people who sit with mobiles in their lap trying to chat on speakerphone get fined too

the only dispute would be the timestamp on the cyclists video needn't be accurate, but Im sure there are alternate apnr cameras that will have timestamped the van (and maybe flagged its lack of MOT/SORNstatus etc who knows) in the area

You certainly don't understand what information is available between police forces as regards allegations of crime or recorded incidents, nor do you have a good enough understanding of what is required to convict re the hand held device.

Again, assumption and incorrect information.

Note that the police contacted the cyclist, so they had a record somewhere of who he was was. Note that he declined to make an allegation. Note that they still have interviewed someone (the driver?) under caution re this incident at a police station.

We're not going to know what he said unless there's a trial, but some will keep on slagging the police regardless of fact.

racyrich wrote:

The cyclist does society a disservice by not proceeding with charges. The sort of disservice that encourages the assailant to carry on in his thuggish ways.
Women have been doing the same for years, letting domestic abusers carry on until the thug kills them or the next gf.

And yes, the cowson's van has no MOT. https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ NC56 FMP Ford

Edit - actually, it's being driven on a SORN. So driver and owner are breaking the law.

If the vehicle is on a SORN, then it isn't taxed and that also means any insurance is also invalid. Those aren't minor offences. The owner will be facing hefty fines, while the driver will be looking at penalty points.