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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Uninsured lorry driver pleads guilty to causing death of cyclist Alan Neve
The lorry driver who killed cyclist Alan Neve in July 2013 has admitted causing death by careless driving and driving while uninsured and unlicensed.
Barry Meyer was driving a tipper truck through the complex junction at High Holborn, London on July 15 when he hit Alan Neve, dragging him along the road. Meyer admitted jumping a red light before hitting Mr Neve.
Alan Neve sustained "massive head injuries" and died instantly at the scene on 15 July 2013, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.
Meyer was charged with “causing death by driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence,” meaning that he did not have a valid licence for the class of lorry he was driving at the time, and with causing death while driving with no insurance.
The court heard that Meyer was trying to keep up with a colleague in another truck when he hit Alan Neve.
The Evening Standard reports that prosecutor Allison Hunter said: “Had Meyer reacted as a dynamic driver would have been expected to do, he could not fail to have seen Mr Neve.
“It appears clear from what Meyer said in an interview that his focus was upon keeping up with his partner in the vehicle in front.
“Not only had Meyer not turned his head or used his mirrors but he then failed to stop, as his front and rear wheels crushed Mr Neve beneath and dragged him along the road, to shrieks of pedestrians and other road users.”
She said his previous convictions, included two bans for drink-driving, showed a “cavalier lack of respect for driving law and regulations”.
Judge Worsley said Meyer had a “shocking driving history” and would inevitably be jailed on return to court on May 14.
Alan Neve worked for PRS for Music, the organisation that protects musician’s copyrights and collects performance fees, and was on his way the organisation’s office in Berners Street, near Goodge Street when he was killed.
In the weeks before Alan Neve's death, police were enforcing a ban on cyclists using the bus lane on nearby Theobalds Road. As a result cyclists had to use the Holborn junction, described by cycling journalist Andy Waterman as "hellish".
"Motorbikes buzz you, taxis rush red lights to get through and huge trucks obliterate the view," Waterman said.
Meyer's guilty plea came after his crminal history was allowed to be revealed to the court. That record includes:
December 1997: Convicted of drink-driving and disqualified for 18 months.
July 1998: Convicted of driving while disqualified.
December 2004: Convicted of driving a lorry with a dangerous load, and other charges.
May 2007: Convicted of drink-driving and disqualified for 36 months.
July 2007: Convicted of driving a van while disqualified. Given a further 12-month disqualification.
September 2008: Stopped driving a 7.5 tonne lorry while disqualified. Gave a false name. Banned for further 14 months.
Meyer also has previous convictions for assault, criminal damage and drug possession.
Cycling advocates expressed amazement that Meyer was charged with causing death by careless driving rather than the more serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving.
How can jumping a red light in an HGV in central London, while disqualified and uninsured, be merely "careless"? pic.twitter.com/qIhHEtmwN4
— Mark Treasure (@AsEasyAsRiding) April 8, 2015
Causing death by dangerous driving carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment; the maximum sentence for causing death by careless driving is five years.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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44 comments
No reputable company would have allowed someone with a driving record this bad to be in charge of a heavy vehicle. It is rather sad that no corporate manslaughter charges are being brought against the company. It is not hard, costly or complex to check a driving record. The company involved really needs further scrutiny and I suspect this could reveal other offences.
The safety record for tipper trucks is not good but there is a minority of companies that cause the majority of the major crashes.
The possibility of him being self employed is why I started commenting on this thread with:
Bring responsibility up the chain, should the lower 'link' not be organised to do so.
This is the case in some other industries, and was held true in the case of BP's fiery platform of leaking oil in the Gulf a few years back.
Would be nothing unusual and likely to truly improve enforcement as financial incentives are now aligned with the legal requirements. There will still be cheating, but less...
Interesting contrast with the furore over Germanwings employing that mentally-disturbed co-pilot. That guy had never actually been convicted of anything, no? But the employer is nevertheless being held liable. Why is it so different when it comes to vehicles that don't leave the ground? Maybe each one can't kill so many people, but there are a lot more of them.
(Of course this is bracketing out the possibility he was a 'self employed contractor' - though, would we allow airlines to have their passenger jets flown by people on such a basis?)
CPS is sick, full stop.
You're right, murder is intentional
Manslaughter is it's own classification of killing people
It's a fair point that it could be argued that it's negligent manslaughter, but please please please can we stop calling it murder? It's not murder. It just isn't.
Yep. Totally agree. Murder requires intent to kill some one which is unlikely. As egregious as the death of Alan Neve is, it was not murder, gross negligence perhaps, even manslaughter as he could have been grossly reckless, but not murder, unless there is evidence to the contrary such as footage of him shouting words of intent to kill before he drove into and over Mr Neve. Awful in any explanation of events. The driver should go to prison for a long long time and be banned from driving for life and have to wear an electronic tracker tag for life when he is released to deter him from driving ever again.
Judge Worsley said Meyer had a “shocking driving history” and would inevitably be jailed on return to court on May 14.
Will he return to court?
Is he not on remand? after killing somebody whilst driving (and I use that term in it's loosest context) uninsured and unlicenced, surely he would have been detained and not allowed to be free to carry on in such a manner.
Why is accidentally murdering someone in a vehicle not manslaughter? In this case and many others we read about, Manslaughter through Gross Negligence would be quite a fitting charge.
Why does the UK's weapon of choice for murdering people have a special exemption? The law needs changing to ban charging responsibility for deaths on UK roads as dangerous/careless driving and start treating a death/murder as manslaughter. It would be easy to demonstrate a lack of due care and/or negligence in many of these cases. Perhaps if drivers thought there was a real risk of prison if someone died as a result of their driving many would be more careful on the roads.
In my opinion this driver was grossly negligent in his actions and as such should have been charged likewise. Had he been in charge of anything but a motor vehicle he would have been charged with manslaughter and would be potentially facing a life term (which I think would be fitting considering the total disregard for the law and safety of others that he has demonstrated for almost 20 years)
The paper counterpart to driving licences becomes obsolete in June, so any relevant party needing to know you status just needs your photo ID card to find out your convictions. I have signed a form allowing my employer to be notified immediately of any endorsements without me saying anything to them. The systems are in place already, so any employer can and really should check credentials before allowing someone to work for them, even if they are only sub-contracting.
Tipper not signwritten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27993540
If we can find the operator employing this chap then come O licence renewal time we write to the local traffic commissioner opposing it. We can also write now to get it on the record that they are "not fit and proper" employers to be using the roads as a workspace.
Agee with the comments above. I am frankly shocked that he has been allowed to drive with no accreditation (driving or insurance). It certainly makes me think twice about getting near one of these things.
Surely this makes his employer liable for not making the right checks? Corporate manslaughter possibly?! Although he maybe 'contracting' which would possibly let them off the hook - despicable as it would be.
Probably drove to court.
who was his employer*? shouldn't they also be in the dock as an accomplice?
* I am assuming he isn't an owner driver with that sort of track record.
Its not fair to blame the employer without knowing what checks were made. As a banned driver its unlikely he bothered returning any licence he had. He maybe even reported his licence lost at some point and used that as proof to his employer that he has/had a licence. Employers have no way of checking a licence is valid. The DVLA wont give out that information due to data protection, and unless hes employed in some kind of security work or with children they'd have no reason to ask for a Disclosure check.
Every employer I have worked for has demanded to see a licence before they will let you near a company vehicle, and demanded to see the licence at regular intervals there after. Granted it isn't foolproof, but with the drivers history you do have to wonder about the employers attitude.
BS. DVLA will give out that information as Data Protection doesn't apply around parties who have a legal right to know.
ZipCar will get you, and DVLA, on a conference call to verify you have a valid non-sanctioned licence when you take out a membership.
If they can, an employer can even more easily.
If he presented a "valid" licence why would they have any reason not to believe him? As I said its not fair to blame the employer without knowing what checks were made at the time. He might have even been a agency driver, so an employer would expect the agency to do these checks. I know when I started my work they took I photo copy of my licence, I was never asked if I was a banned driver.
So if he produced a licence and every time after that as asked too that is still his employers fault? He’s hardly likely to rock up for a job interview and tell them hes currently serving a ban for driving whilst disqualified on 5 occasions now is he? Im not saying his employer wasn’t at fault, im saying no one here knows what checks his employer did or did not make, yet most people here appear to have been working in the HR Dept of the company he was employed by. It’s so easy to have multiple (valid) licences in this country, and yes I know that it is illeagal.
I would argue that employer would be liable, as only checking against DVLA would be reliable. See what Wardy74 said:
"I have signed a form allowing my employer to be notified immediately of any endorsements without me saying anything to them. The systems are in place already, so any employer can and really should check credentials before allowing someone to work for them, even if they are only sub-contracting. "
We do know, the checks were not adequate to establish whether he was driving a company vehicle legally. One of the immediate effects of that is the fleet insurance isn't valid.
This driver is likely to have been self employed owning his vehicle, as he certainly wouldn't be able to lease one with his (lack of) driving licence.
From what you're saying, the standards for verifying the legal ability to drive a vehicle are low indeed.
Reading between the lines, that's normal, so a systemic failure to ensure the most basic level of safety for company drivers or road users in the vicinity of those drivers.
It is fair to blame the employer. Everyone who is employed submits a resume which should be checked, including qualifications which show your ability to do the job. You don't just turn up to work as a doctor without someone checking you can do the job. It doesn't really take much to do these checks and for the purposes of insuring their vehicle they must have someone qualified to drive. Of course they share the blame.
what happens if he was self employed though,precisely because he could never pass those employer checks, then there are no real checks & balances are there...unless the business hiring his company insist on checking as well, cant help think theres far more to come out of this
Surely the company employing the driver it has a responsibility not to be employing someone with no valid licence?
It sounds like the employer would get hit harder for employing someone who doesn't have the right visas than someone without the right driving licence.
Something is very wrong in our society.
I'm with Nevster on this. The police / bus lane decision is the one deserving a spotlight because you just know they'll be planning some new offensive at the moment called Operation Clawhammer or something aimed at reducing deaths a little by reducing cycling a lot.
Can the Estate of Alan Neve not sue the Met Police for endangering his life by banning cyclists from the adjacent bus lane? Did the police act lawfully in doing so? Did they fail in their duty of care which might well be the case given the death of Alan Neve. Can cyclists now use this bus lane?
Its sad that there was an alternative, the bus lane, but that had been taken away by the police. The country is cycling mad at the moment but it would seem that the authorities cant, or dont want to, deal with cycling issues; like giving them as much separate space as possible and giving them priority over motorised traffic, as they do in the Netherlands. Yes, the lorry driver was out of order but until the system changes, the problems won't.
The "authorities" in the UK and a large proportion of motons DGAF about cyclists. We are menaces at best. The slaughter will continue. The UK is a shit and dangerous country to cycle. I never experienced so much hatred and aggression elsewhere than when I cycle in the UK. I have now given up cycling as a main means of transport and drive or ride a big motorbike. No one tries to run me down anymore or gives me abuse or threatens me when I am on my motorbike. Joy.
When I was hit and run last year, cycling home after work about 7:30pm, minding my own business, doing about 27mph, on a dead straight road, with little traffic and a car drove straight into me from behind, throwing me onto the adjacent grass verge, the police response to finding the vehicle and driver was pathetic. I now see that about 250m away from where I was hit there are CCTV cameras which they could have but refused to check when I asked them to check all CCTV in the area.
The driver that hit and ran me was also likely uninsured, disqualified, unlicensed or drunk like this one or had something to hide. There have been some terrible cases where cyclists have been killed and the justice system totally fails the deceased cyclist and their families. This guy should have been prosecuted with causing death by dangerous driving and NO down grading of offence should have even been considered. Disgraceful.
Yeah. And its never just about 'the law' as some sort of absolute - political decisions are constantly made over which laws to enforce. "Cracking down" on cyclists for no obvious purpose appears to be a higher priority than concentrating on enforcing laws that might actually prevent a few deaths.
A bullet between his eyes for this scum would be the best sentence as he effectively executed Alan Neve driving into and over him dragging him along the road. The justice system is an absolute joke if you are a cyclist who has been injured or killed by such a dangerous driver.
In the late 80's I worked for the DoT entering HGV licences onto their first computerised database. There was about 10 of us, all with data entry terminals tapping the main details from HGV drivers licences into the database. It was more of a computerised card index as a lot of data wasn't entered. We were all temps and hadn't had any experience of the industry and quickly noticed that nearly all the drivers had convictions, to the extent that when we found a licence with none we announced it all the others. Most were for "minor" offences such as overloading or defective vehicles but many of the drivers had long lists of these. I got the impression of an industry that really didn't take anything to do with driving regulations very seriously at all - obviously not much has changed.
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