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"Ill-informed" Spectator writer under fire for coverage of manslaughter sentencing for pedestrian who caused cyclist's death

"Reading this article, it's hard to believe someone died," one reply came to Mary Dejevsky's piece about Auriol Grey, the woman found to have caused the death of an elderly cyclist in Cambridgeshire during a pavement cycling dispute...

Mary Dejevsky, a writer for The Spectator, has attracted criticism for a piece claiming cyclists have "been given licence to ride on the pavement" by Auriol Grey's three-year manslaughter sentence for causing the death of an elderly cyclist during a pavement cycling dispute.

Grey was convicted by a jury at Peterborough Crown Court last month and sentenced last week for causing 77-year-old Celia Ward to fall into the road and the path of an oncoming vehicle when she gestured in a "hostile and aggressive way".

A snippet of CCTV was released from the scene, and the police have asked people to "think twice about commenting in relation to this case when they are not in possession of all the facts".

The detective who interviewed Grey opted against making the entire CCTV clip available, describing it as "not appropriate for wider release" and so "horrific" it would make much of the noise about "appropriate responses [...] null and void".

With that context highlighted, Dejevsky — a former foreign correspondent — said her first reaction to hearing about the sentence was "there but for the grace of God go I" and she admitted to shouting at cyclists riding on pavements, having "a tendency to put my hand out to keep an intruding cyclist at bay" and "standing my ground, to force a cyclist to dismount at the barriers designed to stop them slaloming through narrow pedestrian passageways."

> Remove conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, urge campaigners in wake of manslaughter case

"As a driver stuck in a single lane, reduced in size to accommodate those on two wheels," she continued "I might also have been guilty of hooting at a cyclist, taking one hand off the wheel to point demonstratively at the mostly empty cycle lane that has been expensively paid for with my taxes. Why has he or she swerved into 'my' lane? To avoid the red light that would fractionally delay their progress in their own."

Explicitly stating that she has never said or done anything that has "forced a cyclist into the path of another vehicle", Dejevsky went on to again claim "cyclists will henceforward have a free pass" to use pavements.

"The unusual feature in this case is that both the cyclist and the pedestrian were women, and women, what is more, of a certain age," she wrote. "They were not heedless teenagers, nor were they Lycra-clad racers. It may also be, as the detective in the case insists, that if the public did see the full CCTV, they would accept the verdict as 'cut and dried'. 

"For the time being, however, the message I and other pedestrians will hear is that anyone on foot who objects to a cyclist in his or her pavement path risks not just the wrath of the cyclist, but a criminal record." 

Dejevsky's piece has drawn criticism, with some of the reaction on social media labelling it "ill-informed", "barely-disguised hatred" and "using such a tragic offence to seed hatred against cyclists".

In court, judge Sean Enright said the path was a shared cycleway, something the police nor Cambridgeshire County Council have confirmed, the council saying it is aware it is used by cyclists and "we are looking at this location to see if there is any work required to make things clearer".

Celia Ward falls into path of car after being confronted by Auriol Grey (via Cambridgeshire Constabulary and BBC News)

As per the National Police Chiefs' Council's advice for officers responding to people cycling on the pavement, "The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.

"Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required."

A 2021 study by by Jonas Ihlström of the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) concluded that pavement cycling should be "viewed as a sensible outcome as seen from the cyclists' perspective" and that "avoiding the space of the car was the most pronounced reason for cycling on the pavement".

"Cycling among motorised vehicles was related to feelings of fear or discomfort, thus choosing the pavement instead of the road was a strategy adopted for managing this perceived risk. Riding on the pavement was therefore connected to a local context and an aspiration for a mobility without risking accidents and injuries," researchers found."

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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67 comments

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Irrational Pi | 1 year ago
0 likes

Link to directions to jury dosen't work. Found it here. https://www.scribd.com/document/630156362/Auriol-Grey-Directions-of-Law

Directions are very reasonable but there is no mention of assessing her capability or level of disability. It is reasonable to assume the jury assumed it was not significant. There is a phrase sane and reasonable person on point 8.

No mention of capacity in regards to her own defense, either to assert she has it or that she does not.

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TheAdebo | 1 year ago
8 likes

I had the misfortune of reading the article in question.

It was an appalling mix of muddled thinking and misrepresenting the facts.

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Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
19 likes

A very interesting post here from Joshua Rozenberg, BBC law correspondent, which reproduces the judge's remarks in sentencing in full. It gives a more detailed explanation of why the judge felt that Mrs Ward cycling on the pavement/shared path (delete according to prejudice) was not a mitigating factor and also (and I find it astonishing that there has been no reference in the press to this whatsoever) includes the evidence of an eyewitness who said that Grey 'made a lateral sweeping movement with your left arm which was directed at Mrs Ward. He said “it either made contact or she recoiled and fell”.'

https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/why-grey-got-three-years  

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open_roads replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
12 likes

interesting to read about the "enduring distress" of the car driver - that's an angle that's been almost completely ignored in all of the reporting.

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Rendel Harris replied to open_roads | 1 year ago
12 likes
open_roads wrote:

interesting to read about the "enduring distress" of the car driver - that's an angle that's been almost completely ignored in all of the reporting.

I was quite surprised by that, I didn't really think of the car driver being classified as a secondary victim of the tragic events but of course the poor woman will doubtless suffer the trauma of it for the rest of her life. I hope steps have been taken to provide her with any counselling she might need.

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Bungle_52 replied to open_roads | 1 year ago
6 likes

I think this aspect needs more discussion. Other people have mentioned it but it's difficult to comment without access to the trial notes. Whenever I cycle or drive past someone on the pavement I either give 2m or slow down. It is so easy to trip on our appallingly maintained footpaths. People cycling, especially children, are even more likely to fall off into the road. Pedestrians can also just step out into the road which has happened to me on numerous occasions when cycling.

In this case a pedestrian and a cyclist were stopped in front of one another having some sort of confrontation on the edge of the pavement. I would have been well out.

I haven't seen the full video or listened to the trial so it's difficult to comment on this case and I would like to see the reasoning behind deciding that the motorist "had no chance" but if this has been shown to be the case then obviously the driver deserves our sympathy.

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Irrational Pi replied to Bungle_52 | 1 year ago
1 like

Likely assumed that the driver had no chance. The driver had just returned from picking their child up and the possibility she was not paying attention to the pavement is a realistic one. In reality no one really expects drivers to do that despite it being the required standard.

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brooksby replied to Bungle_52 | 1 year ago
2 likes
Bungle_52 wrote:

I think this aspect needs more discussion. Other people have mentioned it but it's difficult to comment without access to the trial notes. Whenever I cycle or drive past someone on the pavement I either give 2m or slow down. It is so easy to trip on our appallingly maintained footpaths. People cycling, especially children, are even more likely to fall off into the road. Pedestrians can also just step out into the road which has happened to me on numerous occasions when cycling.

I walked down to the post office and shops in my village this morning.  The direct route from the top of the village (where I live) and the bottom (where the precinct is) has a footway along one side.

That footway is about one metre wide. The road is two lanes and pretty narrow, you regularly see people driving straddling the centre line if there's no oncoming motor vehicles, and I was always nervous walking the kids when they were younger, or walking the dog (it's also the bus route, and our village is on a double decker bus route) so imagine walking along there as a bus or a truck passes you, or a speeding car (even though we nominally have a 20mph speed limit now).

https://goo.gl/maps/3RC8x3HjD45qnhNT9

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Bungle_52 replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
1 like

Thanks for the reply.

The highway code now recommends 2m for pedestrians where there is no footpath but there is no mention of narrow pavements. This seems ridiculous but it's good to hear that some motorists give room by moving over. Not many do round here in my experience.

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Irrational Pi replied to open_roads | 1 year ago
0 likes

Mentioned in quite a few articles covering it. It's the focus of at least one

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BalladOfStruth replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
15 likes

Ah, you beat me to this. Someone on Reddit posted the judge's sentencing notes a couple of days ago where he explained that there clearly was a "push" aimed at Mrs Ward. Whether the push landed and that's what put Mrs Ward in front of the car or whether her attempts to dodge the push went wrong is unclear, but it's obvious that there was a little more going on here than "just a shout".

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ChrisB200SX replied to BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
7 likes

Check out blackbeltlawyer's tweet about it, she admitted to pushing her and the video shows it.

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Irrational Pi replied to ChrisB200SX | 1 year ago
0 likes

Video shows aggressive arm waving which is what witness describes.

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Irrational Pi replied to BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
0 likes

The report says waving her hands and the witness said it contacts or the cyclists evaded. If she admitted to pushing that seems definitive until you consider that the police and court may have failed to assess her cognitive abilities and therefore taken the appropriate steps when interviewing her.

The fairness very much rests on that assumption. That she is not significantly disabled especially intellectuallly.

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Irrational Pi replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
0 likes

Notes weren't shared when most of the articles written. I made quite a few comments earlier in the week about how this case looked to me as an expert in special education. After my first initial reaction as a keen cyclists I kept seeing all these red flags. After reading the judges notes I'm still in shock. Almost every argument he makes can be used to come to almost exactly the opposite conclusion to the one he makes, those conclusions seeming to me to be way beyond any expertise he has and staggeringly prejudicial. I still want to know exactly what caused the retrial.

Because I could be wrong this is what I would expect to exist, a clinical psychologists report on mental capacity, a medical report on visual impairment, and evidence of a discussion about whether the police considered calling in an advocate during interview or an assessment of if she was a vulnerable adult was ever made.

I think it's reasonable to assume they would have been mentioned if they occurred.

Those notes should be causing people to have more doubts about the fairness of this case not less.

P.s the Spectator article is garbage, the idea that some serious disability discrimination may have occurred is not.

This is a horrible tragedy but if Ariel is vulnerable the sentence is simply another wrong especially as according to the highway code she was in fact the more vulnerable party on the road in the vast majority of such scenarios.

Incidentally closer supervision and 1:1 when out would remove any danger and be cheaper then prison. Obviously that assumes I am right about the LD. I still think that might be unjust.

Really do think this is going to be a text book case of judicial prejudice a decade from now.

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Irrational Pi replied to Irrational Pi | 1 year ago
0 likes

Sorry pavement not road. Ironically the judge made the same error when making the argument about sharing the road. That remark made no mention of the new heirarchy.

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Rendel Harris replied to Irrational Pi | 1 year ago
4 likes
Irrational Pi wrote:

Sorry pavement not road. Ironically the judge made the same error when making the argument about sharing the road. That remark made no mention of the new heirarchy.

I believe that the legal defintion of the road under the RTA is the whole highway, carriageway and pavements included, and road users are members of the public who use any part of the highway for any mode of transport, so in the strict legal sense in which he is used to speaking the judge was correct.

 

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Irrational Pi replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
0 likes

That does make sense though he does imply a level of negotiation that is not in reality the same on the pavement then the road. That's why we let children cycle on the pavement and why we wouldn't expect vulnerable people to be as alert. The lack of signage of dual use not changing that. We could expect everyone to have those skills while walking but I think it's fair to say we don't and have no intention of doing so.

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festina | 1 year ago
2 likes

You say she was ill informed but she clearly states that the rider was on the pavement therefore knowing more than the local police and council who couldn't say for sure if it was shared path or not.  Hmmm, that part isn't mentioned in her article though is it.

Typical council though, add some shared path here and shared path there.  They'll have to teleport over this bit that is to narrow for a shared pathway.  There, done our bit.

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rover759 replied to festina | 1 year ago
5 likes

So this bit in the article?

"In court, judge Sean Enright said the path was a shared cycleway, something the police nor Cambridgeshire County Council have confirmed, the council saying it is aware it is used by cyclists and "we are looking at this location to see if there is any work required to make things clearer"."

Reading helps before commenting.

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Argos74 | 1 year ago
18 likes

In all the froth and fury, it's worth taking a look at some of Dejevsky's previous, erm, writings...

Russia does not want a war in Ukraine = Spiked Online 10/12/2021

What the media gets wrong about Putin and Ukraine - Spectator, 5/2/2022

Anyone who lands so spectacularly on the wrong side of history struggles - in my book at least - to be counted as a credible user of the English language.

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BIRMINGHAMisaDUMP replied to Argos74 | 1 year ago
11 likes

She is probably one of those ridiculous swivel eyed loons - who speaks of brexthick 'benefits' that will come. One day. Soon. Maybe in 50 years or so . 

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VIPcyclist | 1 year ago
12 likes

It's a sad state of affairs all round this story. Poor Celia Ward an OAP, who quite honestly should have had the absolute legal right to cycle on a path given just how vulnerable cyclists are on the road. Then there's Auriol Grey a women who, by the sound of it : has mental health problems and lives an isolated life apparently leaving her front door ajar when she, once a week I read, ventures out. Once upon a time Auriol Grey would have had a key-worker to help her or perhaps an adult social worker ; do ether of these still exist?
There's no happy, or just, ending to this story just the immiseration of one family and the vilification of a vulnerable adult.

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mt1138 replied to VIPcyclist | 1 year ago
6 likes

A vulnerable adult who chose a confrontation with Celia Ward, and who rather than realising the severity of what had happened and stopping to help, just walked on to the shops. I have no sympathy for her. And I note that she's not exactly being vilified in the press either.

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Irrational Pi replied to mt1138 | 1 year ago
0 likes

She is. Using language often used to dehumanise cyclists. Ward also choose to continue cycling towards her, likely because she was scared and thought she could force her way past, same behaviour as many drivers dealing with an irate cyclists trying to protect their space.

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Irrational Pi replied to VIPcyclist | 1 year ago
0 likes

Yes. Though I think she might like the independence of the walk and prefer the help at home. She apperantly enjoys walking despite the difficulty.

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OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
12 likes

"...only my second thought turned to the horror experienced by the vctim..."

The fact that the victim died wasn't uppermost in her thoughts shows just what a waste of air Mary Dejevsky is.

 

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Awavey replied to OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
5 likes

It's a classic writers structure to an opinion piece, you're lensing/filtering the situation through your immediate reaction to make the reader feel theres a more personable connection with you, reactions they themselves might have felt, as you build your article up.

It literally starts with "Let me confess..." and "...My first, entirely selfish,thought".

I dont think it's fair to criticise the writer or article on those grounds alone.

I'd criticise the thrust of the article, cyclists have licence to do what they want, but its built against a backdrop where even the Guardian would only describe this particular case as Auriol Grey shouted and waved at Celia Ward to get off the pavement.

Singling out the Spectator alone, when the mainstream media, some worse than others, have been as ill informed and not reported the details of the case well at all, has resulted in the comments section of those newspapers, all manner of online forums and across social media fuelled more hatred against cyclists or cyclists on shared paths.

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OldRidgeback replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
4 likes

I'm a professional writer. I'd never write a piece like that. Just saying....

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Awavey replied to OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
0 likes

Then you should be familiar with that writing style and the authors intent, that you would choose not to write it, is simply your personal choice at the end of the day

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