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news
Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Single mother jailed for mowing down cyclist as she shouted at her children
A family in Essex says they will never get over the death of a beloved husband, father and grandfather, who was killed by a mother who said she mowed down the holidaying cyclist when she was distracted by her children.
Twenty seven year-old single mum Laura Brayshaw said she lost control of her Nissan Almera at 50mph after turning around for a “split-second” to tell off her three young daughters who were throwing popcorn.
She killed 58 year-old cyclist Richard Ellis, who had three daughters and three grandchildren, and was nearing the end of a 130-mile Audax event in Dorset. He died two days later in hospital.
His wife, Catherine Ellis told Bournemouth Crown Court in a victim’s statement that she could not forgive the driver.
Tim Shorter, defending, said Brayshaw had made "a simple and tragic mistake" and that jailing her would take her away from her thee children and "pile tragedy on tragedy."
However, Judge Peter Crabtree OBE said Brayshaw's offences were too serious for anything but a jail sentence.
The judge jailed the driver, who had passed her test only six months beforehand, for 20 weeks and banned her from driving for 20 months after she admitted causing death by careless driving.
It later emerged Brayshaw was stopped again just five months after the fatal incident, this time for driving under the influence of drugs after combining antidepressants and painkillers with wine.
Mr Ellis was an experienced cyclist who cycled around 10,000km a year and was only a mile from the end of the endurance event.
His daughter Natasha told the Leigh Times: “The irresponsible and reckless actions of the driver caused a world of suffering for the Ellis family.”
Her sister, Nicola added: “Not only has she robbed me of my dad, she has also robbed my son of his grandad.”
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Where did you read the minimum tariff is 5 years? Sentencing Guidelines says it's 2 years (minimum disqualification is 5 years)....
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24 comments
ah yes - didn't spot the links were incomplete.
no
http://cyclingfront.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/i-cant-help-it-if-cyclist-get...
Ah fiddlesticks! I'd thought I was being really helpful and clever with those links...
Will edit them.
Some people clearly have a lot of time on their hands!
Is that Dr Helen Measures we're talking about?
Apropos of nothing, I'm just going to hit keys randomly and see what happens.
Cyclist killer. Miscarriage of justice.
Well, would you look at that. If I sit in a cage, I reckon I've got some Shakespeare in me somewhere.
they really need to give death by dangerous/careless driving the same prison sentences as manslaughter, as no one will take the sentences seriously until the custodial sentences become years instead of weeks.
Ok, I don't like the first incident, but I guess I can understand it. But nobody possessing any sort of conscience, having killed one person, would get behind the wheel while off her face on a cocktail of drugs. Apart from the RTS, she should have her ability as a parent investigated.
I'm going to dip my toes very carefully into the water here...
I don't condone any of what this woman has done but, after killing someone, taking someone's life, I wonder if the reason she was taking anti-depressants and acting irrationally by overloading on tablets and alcohol was because of the guilt of killing and fear of the effect on her children.
Like I say, I don't condone her actions and she has to accept full responsibility for what she has done but killing someone can do strange things to your head (unlike Measures who seems to absolve herself of any responsibility whatsoever).
Shame that the terrifying guilt and shame she felt didn't make her stiop driving. Surely the only good outcome fopr her children would be for them to be placed with someone who might actually care for them.
At 50mph you travel ~22 metres per second. So her defence involved arguing that she hadn't seen the cyclist less than 20 metres ahead of her?
I get that we are a hated outgroup and our deaths don't mean didly, but idiot motorists kill far more other motorists than they do us. Why isn't there an outcry about that? This woman is a danger to all of those on the roads and pavements, and her own children.
We know that if a cyclist somehow managed to kill just one motorist there would be a national scandal and calls for something needing to be done.
Oh and the more that we mation that Dr Helen Measures is a killer motorist, the less easy it will be for the internet to forget.
And this seems a very light sentence.
Before anyone starts going on about 'guidelines' or complaining about 'Daily Mail readers', I'd say that the critical point is that the cyclist did nothing wrong but was brutally killed and nobody has been held seriously to account for it. Yet again the justice system has treated it as 'just one of those things', that while kind-of the fault of the driver, they didn't mean to do it, it was at least partially just bad luck, etc.
The question is, how can you ask people to cycle where those are the terms?
So, if society doesn't want to choke to death with roads totally clogged with cars while everyone gets fatter and fatter, then_either_ the law should properly enforce safe-driving, with no excuses accepted and ten or twenty year sentences for this sort of behaviour...or the state has to stop pretending it's just peachy for cyclists to be expected to 'share' roads with these unaccountable drivers, and a large proportion of road-space and funds have to be redirected to cater to cyclists rather than motorists. It has to be one or the other.
Go full Daily Mail or full Guardian. I honestly don't mind which, just stop trying to have it both ways.
Totally agree, and I fear the likely route, while the likes of Grayling, West Ham's Labour lot and Robert Flello are in positions of authority, is more marginalisation. For our own good, natch, and without any decent infrastructure to use as a plan B.
There just doesn't seem to be any joining of the dots at national government level: save the NHS money: get people cycling. It's all pointless colourful pamphlets and 'nudging' people who already don't need to be nudged.
That's why the likes of the W Mids police initiative are to be applauded and supported.
FFS. Kills someone then before sentencing is out again whilst off her tree on booze and drugs. Hopefully when that charge comes up she'll get some more added to her sentence.
Truly frightening to think you could die because of popcorn being thrown in a car.
Standard "It's only a cyclist" format although a nice twist with substance abusing future of the country there. She probably deserves a holiday too.
20 months driving ban. That'll do it.
Except it obviously didn't, seeing as though she was stopped again just a few months later whilst unfit through drink and drugs
Only a Court can ban someone from driving, so I am assuming she got caught while driving unfit through drink and drugs before the first case had come to Court.
As a society we should never let someone who has killed a person while driving ever have a driving licence again. It's time for lifetime bans, and mandatory prison sentences for those caught driving while disqualified. A society that gives second chances to killers is a shit one.
Why is driving seen as some God-given right?
Only a Court can ban someone from driving, ...... [/quote]
I'm not a hundred percent sure but I believe the police have the power to prevent someone driving if they've been charged with drink-driving. Maybe this could be extended to cover all serious charges?
I'm presuming that incident occurred before the sentencing and hence before the ban started? (Otherwise this really makes no sense at all).
Though I wonder whether there isn't a case for having a kind of provisional driving-ban for these sorts of cases, the driving equivalent of being imprisoned on remand. So, until the facts of the case are determined, you aren't getting back behind the wheel.
I mean, any decent person who'd been involved in a fatal collision like this would surely not _want_ to drive for a good period of time, even if they hadn't yet faced trial?
And if its OK to imprison people while they await trial, I don't see how anyone can question the justice of a driving ban for that period.
Look at the bigger picture here.
Licence holder after only 6 months then serves a 20 month ban and has a criminal conviction. She's rendered herself uninsurable or if there is a market for her, it'll be incredibly expensive and she'll be priced out of it.
One would hope she wouldn't drive around uninsured but you never know these days.
My next door neighbour constantly drives with No MOT, No Tax, No Insurance, SORN vehicles...he drives like a nob...I have reported every single vehicle he has driven and the police/DVLA have done fck all.....so yes she will be driving again regardless...If you dont care and no-one locks you up then you just do what you want
Just out of curiosity; how do you know his vehicle is SORN?
https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax