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Suspended sentence “a real farce”, says family of cyclist killed by motorist – as Cycling UK blasts UK’s “broken road traffic laws”

“Driving a car is like having a knife in your hand, it’s a dangerous weapon and if you kill somebody you should get made to pay for it. He just hasn’t, he's walked away free”...

The father of a cyclist who was struck from behind and killed by a motorist – despite experts finding that the rider should have been visible for at least seven seconds before the collision – has described the suspended sentence handed to the driver, convicted of causing death by careless driving, as “too lenient” and a “real farce”.

Tony Jones, whose son David was killed while cycling in Bridgend in 2020, compared driving to holding a “dangerous weapon” and that “if you kill somebody you should be made to pay for it”, while Cycling UK says the tragic case – and the decision to only charge motorist Raymond Treharne with causing death by careless driving – is symptomatic of the UK’s “broken road traffic laws”.

The cycling charity also called on the government to commit to its “long overdue comprehensive review to bring consistency to our road traffic laws and keep responsible cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers safe”.

> “Where were you looking? Why didn’t you see him?” Former HGV driver receives suspended sentence for killing cyclist

In March, we reported that 41-year-old father-of-two 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 retired HGV driver Treharne, who was driving a 4x4 Grand Cherokee Jeep at the time of the incident.

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, who should have seen the cyclist for at least seven seconds before striking him, 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 February trial and last month was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and banned from driving for seven years.

> Fuel tanker driver receives six-month suspended sentence for causing death of cyclist by careless driving

Speaking to the BBC, Tony Jones described the impact his son’s death has had on his family.

“The night before he was here having steak and chips with us for his tea and that’s the last time we saw him,” he said.

Jones said he first heard the news after calling David, only to find a police officer on the other end of the phone.

“He said Davey had been in an accident,” Jones said. “I said ‘is he alright?' And he said ‘I’m 99 percent sure he’s dead’. I came in here and told the wife and it was chaos here. She couldn’t believe it, she just broke down and she’s still the same now.”

A retired coach driver, Jones said the subsequent court case was made even more difficult because he knows Treharne and had worked with him in the past.

“If he had come over and said ‘I’m sorry’, it wouldn’t have made any difference about bringing Davey back but he would have shown a bit of remorse, but there was nothing at all,” he added.

> Driver jailed for two-and-a-half years for killing one cyclist and seriously injuring another blamed victims for “not riding in single file”

As the court was told that Treharne should have seen the cyclist ahead of him for at least seven seconds, Jones said he “couldn’t believe what I was hearing”.

“Seven seconds is a long time when you think about it. It’s long enough to react and obviously he didn’t,” he said.

Describing the suspended sentence handed out to Treharne as a “real farce” and Judge Catherine Richards as “too lenient”, Mr Jones added: “I couldn’t believe he just walked.

“Driving a car is like having a knife in your hand, it’s a dangerous weapon and if you kill somebody you should get made to pay for it. He just hasn’t, he’s walked away free.”

Jones said that the family has been advised that an appeal against the decision would be unlikely to succeed, as Treharne was sentenced within the guidelines for causing death by careless driving.

The maximum sentence for causing death by careless driving is currently five years, whereas until recently the maximum jail term for causing death by dangerous driving stood at 14 years, but for offences committed on or after 28 June 2022 a life sentence can now be imposed.

However, even in the most egregious cases, the sentences handed down to drivers convicted of the offence are often far less.

> "Where is the effort being put into dangerous driving which kills, maims and destroys lives?": All the reaction to government plan to introduce death by dangerous cycling law

Andrew Taylor, a criminal barrister based at Apex Chambers in Cardiff, told the BBC: “I suspect because Raymond Treharne had an impeccable driving record, he’d driven professionally for many years, there was no evidence of any drink or drugs involved, there was no evidence that the vehicle was other than properly on the road with tax, MOT, insured and all the things we expect of a driver – and therefore [Judge Catherine Richards] decided to draw back from sending him to immediate custody and she imposed a suspended sentence.

“This is a case where a person behind a wheel, with devastating consequences, sadly doesn’t keep a proper look out as we all have to do when we get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

“That of course cost the deceased his life, which is tragic, but there is nothing the learned judge did not take into account which should have been properly taken into account.”

Nevertheless, Cycling UK’s campaigns manager Kier Gallagher believes that this particular case demonstrates why the law around careless and dangerous driving needs to be reviewed.

“Failing to spot another road user for almost 10 seconds before crashing into and killing them is clearly a dangerous act, yet our broken road traffic laws mean Raymond Treharne was merely charged with causing death by careless driving,” Gallagher said.

“The Westminster government promised to review these failing laws in 2014 but we’re still waiting, and the price of delay is sadly paid again and again by families like that of David Jones.”

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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17 comments

Avatar
Hirsute | 11 months ago
2 likes

Just saw this one

https://www.itv.com/news/border/2023-03-27/van-driver-jailed-for-causing...

Barron denied causing death by careless driving but was convicted following a crown court trial during which jurors heard he had reversed around 72m (236ft) the wrong way down narrow New Street.

 

How is that careless and to plead not guilty ?

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to Hirsute | 11 months ago
1 like

"Amid chaotic scenes in central Wigton after a number of earlier stabbings on the late afternoon of 31 July, 2019, David Barron, 57, made the decision to back his Mercedes Sprinter vehicle the wrong way into New Street as he sought to visit a business."

Be interesting to find out how that was relevant.

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ooldbaker | 11 months ago
1 like

 His ban and age should mean that he will not harm anyone else.

The ones that upset me more are those that escape as not guilty and therefore are free to drive home from the court without even points on their licence. I can't remember too many cases where drivers get bans this long. 

I know this one lied in court but would it really make any of us happier knowing that a 74 year old man who had never broken the law before, was spending years in prison. Drink/driving or some other illegal act yes, but a moment of carelessness. not for me.

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Car Delenda Est | 11 months ago
1 like

So what was the reason for not seeing the cyclist?
Or does the judge truly believe a driver can be paying attention to what's in front of them without actually seeing?

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brooksby | 11 months ago
7 likes

Its (very) OT, but did anyone see the news article yesterday where a coroner was addressing a collision on a 'smart' motorway?

A tyre flatted on a van so the driver pulled over but couldn't get out of the live lane because there was no hard shoulder.  A woman driving her car ran into the back of the van three and a half minutes later, killing the van driver and the car passenger (her husband).

So she was driving on the motorway and a van was stationary in her lane for over two hundred seconds and yet she 'somehow' failed to notice it.  It puts the whole 'he was visible for seven seconds' into perspective.

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ChrisB200SX | 11 months ago
6 likes

Odd that not seeing someone in front of you for 7 seconds and then ploughing into and killing them is seen by the justice system as only careless and not dangerous.

If we don't actually punish those who kill innocent people through atrocious and unacceptable behaviour, how will we educate the public that such behaviour is unacceptable and has consequences?!

Avatar
eburtthebike | 11 months ago
6 likes

Interesting to compare this case to this one, where the cyclist was fined £1k, despite the motorcyclist who died breaking the law. https://road.cc/content/news/tougher-sentences-cyclists-causing-serious-...

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Rendel Harris replied to eburtthebike | 11 months ago
6 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

Interesting to compare this case to this one, where the cyclist was fined £1k, despite the motorcyclist who died breaking the law. https://road.cc/content/news/tougher-sentences-cyclists-causing-serious-...

Lots of discussion on Twitter yesterday about that case due to the mother of the deceased's demands for tougher sentences for "killer cyclists" (© Daily Mail). Cyclist making a legal manouevre hit by a motorcyclist travelling at 47mph in a 30mph zone (prosecution figures); been asking people to decide whether if a pedestrian (mis)judged it was safe to cross the road on the basis of how far away a car was and was hit by said car doing 47mph in a 30 zone they would say the pedestrian was to blame. An infuriating case and one which highlights the absurdity of having a single judge (who gave it as his opinion that the cyclist was clearly to blame because from the lorry CCTV "he doesn’t obviously check") as the sole arbiter.

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Bungle_52 | 11 months ago
5 likes

The real problem here is the distinction between careless and dangerous. Killing someone by driving into the back of them because you did not see them is deemed "inconsiderate" by the justice system. Its no wonder the CPS have difficulty prosecuting close passes if this is the bar that is set.

It's a bit late to deal with the problem of drivers killing cyclists once the cyclist is dead. What is needed is to make drivers aware of their poor driving and the potential consequences before a tragedy inevitably occurs. The whole system needs to change to one of prevention by taking action against drivers early.

There is a whole army of cyclists willing to submit video evidence of potentially dangerous driving to the police but until what the courts view as "careless or inconsiderate driving" changes it will be difficult to make progress.

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Car Delenda Est replied to Bungle_52 | 11 months ago
3 likes

It's as if careless driving wasn't dangerous by definition..

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Jimmy Ray Will replied to Car Delenda Est | 11 months ago
0 likes

I think that misses the point of the distinction between the careless and dangerous. 

The difference as I understand it is dangerous refers to actions that were knowingly dangerous to the driver when they were doing them. So speeding, driving whilst intoxicated, on the wrong side of the road etc. 

The driver willfully neglected their duty of care. 

Anything else is careless... meaning it was not their intention to drive in a manner that causes harm.

Now to me, this gets dangerous when you factor in the low standard of driving we are constantly told is acceptable... for instance... cyclists being 'invisible' if not in hi-viz and lit up like a christmas tree, or vision obscurred by the sun... 'what could I possible have done to avoid them when I couldn't see them?', etc. etc. 

We need change. 

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ChrisB200SX replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 11 months ago
3 likes

Jimmy Ray Will wrote:

I think that misses the point of the distinction between the careless and dangerous. 

The difference as I understand it is dangerous refers to actions that were knowingly dangerous to the driver when they were doing them. So speeding, driving whilst intoxicated, on the wrong side of the road etc. 

The difference in the justice system is the word "far".

Careless driving - Below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver.

Dangerous driving - Far below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver.

Apparently, barrelling along while not looking where you are going, or at who you might kill, for seven seconds is not far below the standard.

I don't understand how any reasonable human being in this country could come to that conclusion, but someone did just that.

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wycombewheeler replied to ChrisB200SX | 11 months ago
2 likes

ChrisB200SX wrote:

The difference in the justice system is the word "far".

Careless driving - Below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver.

Dangerous driving - Far below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver.

Apparently, barrelling along while not looking where you are going, or at who you might kill, for seven seconds is not far below the standard.

I don't understand how any reasonable human being in this country could come to that conclusion, but someone did just that.

When the members of the jury all consider themselves competent and careful drivers, this boils down to 'do 11 of 12 drivers all consider these actions to be FAR worse than what they would do, such that they could never see themselves being in the unfortunate position of the defendant'?

And obviously there are normally at least 2 or 3 who cannot answer yes to that question, or just think it's the cyclists fault for getting on the road in the first place.

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chrisonabike replied to Jimmy Ray Will | 11 months ago
0 likes

Dangerous Driving = "very little possibility of conviction".  Hence rarely charged - or only to encourage guilty plea to lesser offense of...

Careless Driving = "possibility of conviction".  Or what your brief suggests you plead guilty to if you've been so bad you're accused of "dangerous" and they feel that you've not got a hope of convincing the court that "there but for the grace of god go I".  Both pretty rare circumstances.

Or looking at the definitions ("Below / far below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver"): "how long's a piece of string vs. how long's a long piece of string?".  No special knowledge or even experience of string required...

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lonpfrb replied to chrisonabike | 11 months ago
1 like
chrisonatrike wrote:

Dangerous Driving = "very little possibility of conviction".  Hence rarely charged - or only to encourage guilty plea to lesser offense of...

Careless Driving = "possibility of conviction".  Or what your brief suggests you plead guilty to if you've been so bad you're accused of "dangerous" and they feel that you've not got a hope of convincing the court that "there but for the grace of god go I".

Good points about feasibility of conviction and the other major issue is the Sentencing Council guidelines that suggest such little sanction for these offences, or at least are applied so reluctantly.

Invest in nuclear weapons to deter aggressive states and get a top table seat at the UN Security Council using £Bns of tax payers money.

Fail to deter aggressive road users and force them to respect every human life because some entitled people will moan about it.

No double standard there at all....

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ktache | 11 months ago
8 likes

At least there was a seven year ban.

Hopefully an extended retest?

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Samtheeagle replied to ktache | 11 months ago
5 likes

At 81 when he will be legally allowed to get behind the wheel he would likely fail a test if required to do so.  So lets hope that is the case.

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