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news
David Jones (South Wales Police)“Where were you looking? Why didn’t you see him?” Former HGV driver receives suspended sentence for killing cyclist
“Why didn’t you see him?” That was the question posed in court this week by the family of a cyclist who was struck from behind and killed by a former HGV driver, as the motorist was handed a nine-month suspended sentence for causing the father-of-two’s death.
41-year-old David Jones was cycling on the A48 Crack Hill in Bridgend at around 5.50am on 27 May 2020 when he was hit from behind by 74-year-old Raymond Treharne driving a 4x4 Grand Cherokee Jeep, Wales Online reports.
Jones was thrown in the air in the collision and suffered a serious head injury. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Following the crash, former professional driver Treharne allegedly told witnesses that “I hit him… He was standing on the bike. He fell into the road”.
However, forensic collision investigators told the subsequent trial at Cardiff Crown Court that Mr Jones was riding his bike in an upright position at the time of the fatal collision, and did not fall prior to Treharne hitting him.
The trial also heard that there was no evidence that the motorist had applied his brakes or swerved before the collision.
Treharne, who pleaded not guilty to causing Mr Jones’ death by careless driving, was found guilty following the trial last month and on Monday was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and banned from driving for seven years.
At the sentencing hearing at Swansea Crown Court, Mr Jones’ father, Tony, said in a victim impact statement that Treharne’s decision to plead not guilty only served to prolong the family’s pain, and questioned the driver’s decisions on the day his son was killed.
“We’re good people and a good family. We don’t harbour hate or malice towards anyone. We’re not looking for vengeance or a pound of flesh,” Mr Jones’ father said.
“We’re looking for justice and an answer to an easy question. Where were you looking? How could you not see my son riding a bike? Why didn’t you see him? Only you and your conscience can answer that question.
“My son was out cycling, doing something he loved, and did nothing wrong. You were to blame. If you would have taken responsibility, we could have had some closure sooner. But you hid behind vagueness and slowed the process down and added to our pain. We are left with a life of pain and sorrow.”
The mother of Mr Jones’ two children, Michelle Crocker, also told the court that “telling them their father had died was the hardest thing I’ve had to do”.
Defending, Helen Randall said the “desperately sad incident” has had a “profound effect” on Treharne, “a man who made a career through driving for over 50 years”.
“He stopped driving after the collision and working for the first time in 50 years,” she said.
Sentencing Treharne, Judge Catherine Richards said: “Mr Jones was an experienced cyclist and was not to blame at all. No sentence can reflect the pain and distress the family have been, and are, going through.
“The light and conditions that day may have made it more difficult to see Mr Jones, but after hearing expert and forensic evidence, the driver would have seen him for at least seven seconds. If you would have been paying attention you would have seen him.”
In addition to the suspended sentence and driving disqualification, the judge also imposed on the 74-year-old a curfew between 5pm and 6am, which will last for six months.
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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39 comments
I hope something good comes out of this e.g. driver doesn't drive again (7 year ban should take them into their 80s).
I suspect their driving isn't going to get better at this stage in their life.
Everyone think twice before posting (Rendel - this means you!).
Don't bite.
Oh look, it's Martin and his wife on their way to a nice evening at the Theatre.
I wonder if our DLF understands that these are two different charges with different sentencing guidelines?
I have explained that a couple of times, so they should.
It's not a matter of understanding! In a "game" of pigeon chess the rules of chess (or "a game") are beside the point.
This is such bullshit. The wording of driving offences in this country is designed to apologise for drivers before they've even said anything.
The crime of Vehicular Manslaughter should replace both 'Death by' charges. It removes the chance of a driver pleading innocence because of the usual pathetic excuses, and better suits the fact that in virtually all cases they weren't paying attention in the first place.
I agree with you but why should there be a vehicular element in the first place? If someone has killed someone else, whether it be intentional, through negligence or by some other cause, why does it matter that a vehicle is involved? Why not apply the same standards in all cases and simply apply the tests for murder/manslaughter?
Aiui the CPS had confirmed manslaughter was always a charge that could be used in death by driving/cycling cases like this. But without witnesses and/or video evidence its incredibly difficult to get jurors to convict on it.
True. Charlie Alliston was initially charged with manslaughter if memory serves.
Not just initially charged, he was tried for it but the jury found him not guilty whilst convicting him on the lesser charge of causing bodily harm through wanton and furious driving.
Indeed. But if the same thing happens in a car, offences from RTA 1988 seem to be applied by default. And why?! The fact that there is a vehicle involved should be irrelevant.
Collision report states both were heading east, sunrise was 05:07 and conditions were described as 'fine'. Glad to see a forensic expert debunked the 'sun in the eyes' mitigation.
Unbelievable story from the driver about 'standing on the bike and falling into the road'. Really ought to have been some prison time for pleading not guilty and dragging the poor family through a court case.
There's a cyclist on the Streetview at this location, which is almost exactly what the driver's view would have been like coming up Crack Hill:
Not much point in changing the Highway Code if it isn't backed up by the legal system.
The message "If I kill a cyclist I will likely walk out of court a free person" yet again is reinforced by a judge. The culture amongst drivers, that those repeated messages create, kills people. If you are so careless to run down a cyclist in otherwise almost perfect conditions; how that not be dangerous driving? The engineer and materials scientist James Gorden rightly railed against the acceptance of casual carelessness as an excuse in Britain, appalled by the number of aircrew who died as a result of that culture in aircraft factories during the war.
A similar story in the local rag today, blaming “momentary inattention”:
22 year old Mia Price from Swansea could not explain why her Toyota Yaris veered onto the wrong side of the A483 south of Newtown, Powys, killing one of the occupants. Renata Anna Sumiga was 37 and left behind a husband and 2 children.
“Two families' lives have been ruined by this tragic collision" said the judge but that's not strictly true.
Sentence - a 12 month community order with 15 rehabilitation requirement days and disqualified from driving for just 2 years.
I'd like to think that in cases such as these the driver's phone is, as a matter of standard procedure (just as with the breath test), siezed and subjected to forensic data analysis, just to rule out the obvious.
I'd like to think that in cases such as these the driver's phone is, as a matter of standard procedure (just as with the breath test), siezed and subjected to forensic data analysis, just to rule out the obvious
Not if you have the wrong kind of police in your area who regard phone driving as normal behaviour
https://upride.cc/incident/yh66utp_audia1_handheldmobile/
https://upride.cc/incident/kd10wer_porsche_mobilephone/
No response from Lancashire Constabulary to these blatant offences where I could time the incident within 2 or 3 seconds through GPS
It seems so, it's mentioned in the article:
"The court heard that there was no drink or drugs involved, no use of a phone or a mechanical fault with Price’s car."
I don't have a problem with a community order since prison would be counterproductive and not serve as a deterrent; but a measly 2 year ban for causing death and injuries with no explanation? I would hope that she is expected to do an extended re-test and gets stung for her insurance. And her friends etc learn from what I am sure has been a horrible experience (the same applies to Treharne).
Does anyone know how far the police go in checking for phone use in these cases? Obviously if the driver hands over their mobile phone or it is found in a search of the car, they can check the call log; if the driver claims they haven't got a phone with them do the police check with phone companies for all accounts and the driver may have and ask for call logs from them? If not then presumably the guilty parties could hide their phone before the police turn up and escape scrutiny.
Does anyone know how far the police go in checking for phone use in these cases?
My guess is that it's massively determined by the attitude of the police in your area: Police Interceptors may check, Bent Police Idlers won't
I do wonder how in depth it is.
These are incredibly complex and powerful computers, which I'm guessing will make a record of any screen touch. It's wether this is ever looked at?
When the police have sunk to the level of being willing to look the other way over vehicles enjoying 5 glorious years of police inattention to No MOT, no insurance and no VED, they're certainly going to choose a few tenners over checking phone records
Amen.
Mobile phone use whilst driving is now as widespread and tolerated as drink-driving (one for the road...) once was. It merits the same approach - tests that can be deployed at the road side or at the police station, used as a matter of standard procedure, regardless of suspicion or blame. Drivers must expect to "phonealysed", just as they expect to be breathalysed.
I'm sure it took some determination to develop roadside alcohol breath testers, and the police station blood testing facilities. There was a will.
The same must happen for mobile phones. Not just a quick shufty through the recent calls log - an actual forensic examination of the phone's memory to discover exactly what it was doing around the time of the incident.
During the Kelly affair, Gilligan's blackberry was forensically examined and every keystroke was analysed, with times. That was then.
You'd hope a similar level of robustness is applied when a death of a vulnerable road user by a driver has occurred?
You'd hope a similar level of robustness is applied when a death of a vulnerable road user by a driver has occurred?
Can you honestly see a police force, which just ignored this near death experience for me when the driver of Infiniti YL16 RNV came over the crest of a blind bridge and over the double white lines to find (what a surprise!) oncoming traffic and decided to avoid the nasty hard metal vehicles and go for the soft bodied cyclist instead, bothering with phone records if he had managed to finish me off?
They'd have been too busy issuing the 'our thoughts are with the family of the cyclist killed in this tragic accidental collision with a car' standard notice.
https://upride.cc/incident/yl16rnv_infiniti_closepassdwlcross/
As you can see, I'm trying to provide some variety in my incidents, with some new but old features!
I was told that a huge amount of data can be retrieved, to show exactly what was being done on the phone at a given time. Its presumably quite easy if you know how, so an easy evidence win for the police.
I think that is the least part of it. At a guess I'd say only 10% were actually on a voice call. The rest will be texting, messaging, scrolling, browsing, etc. And with so many ways to message, checking the stock app isn't enough either.
There was a case in Suffolk near Long Melford on the A134 in 2018, not sure if road.cc covered it, that Google has done a good job of deleting most refs to so sorry it's a Daily Mail link
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8151773/amp/Cement-mixer-driver...
Now obviously the witnesses reported the driver was using his phone, and the camera captured the drivers first instinct was to place the phone in this compartment outside the truck, so the police could have reasonable suspicion to go that step further seize and analyse the phone and likely involve telcos to get data records on what the phone was telling the network about itself, which is probably more than the average driver realises, that monthly Google this is where you've been email isnt based on guesswork.
But I dont think that step is automatic, there has to be enough evidence to warrant what likely involves a court order/evidence warrant to get it.
Interesting, thanks - yes I'd imagine there are quite a few hoops to be jumped through.
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