Jury discharged as cyclist lorry death case goes to retrial

A judge at Nottingham Crown Court has discharged the jury in a case where a lorry driver had been charged with causing the death of a cyclist through dangerous driving, with a retrial set for September.

Louise Wright, aged 29, died from “catastrophic injuries” sustained when she was dragged underneath the Greene King delivery lorry driven by Adam Haywood, 30, at a junction in the East Midlands city in July 2014, reports BBC News.

At his trial this week, the prosecution alleged that Mr Haywood had failed to indicate, while witnesses described how the lorry struck the rear wheel of her bike as it turned at the junction of Lower Parliament Street and Pennyfoot Street.

The driver claimed he had checked his mirrors but not seen the cyclist, and added that he could not recall whether or not he had indicated.

He said it was only when witnesses began to scream and shout that he realised something had happened.

In October 2014, three months after Ms Wright’s death, Nottingham City Council said it planned to remove a ghost bike commemorating her and would discuss with her family and partner the possibility of erecting a permanent memorial.

> Nottingham ‘ghost bike’ to be removed

The retrial will commence on 19 September at Derby Crown Court, with Judge James Sampson saying that the reason for discharging the jury could not be reported.

Under a Protocol issued by the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, individual jurors or the entire jury can be discharged in the case of a jury irregularity, defined as

... anything that may prevent a juror, or the whole jury, from remaining faithful to their oath or affirmation as jurors to ‘faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence’. Anything that compromises the jury’s independence, or introduces into the jury’s deliberations material or considerations extraneous to the evidence in the case, may impact on the jurors’ ability to remain faithful to their oath or affirmation.

The document notes that “irregularities take many forms.”

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