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Justice (Lonpicman, Wikimedia Commons)Suspended sentence for Yorkshire driver who killed oncoming cyclist while overtaking
A driver has been sentenced to seven months in jail, suspended for a year, after admitting causing the death of a cyclist by careless driving near Brighouse. Philip Roper hit and killed William Stoker, who was cycling in the opposite direction, while overtaking another car on January 14 last year.
The Huddersfield Daily Examiner reports that Roper had been travelling along the A6025 behind a BMW which had moved to overtake a slower moving Kia.
Roper, driving a Citroen C5, had also moved to overtake and while prosecutor Stephen Wood said that the road was theoretically wide enough to allow the manoeuvre and leave enough space for an on-coming cyclist, this depended upon the position of the vehicles.
“This collision occurred when the defendant pulled out further into the offside than the BMW and collided with Mr Stoker, who was there to be seen,” said Wood, who said the cyclist had been wearing a red high-vis jacket.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Roper should have waited before making the manoeuvre.
“You should have waited,” he said. “By the time you saw the cyclist, if you saw him at all, it was too late.”
Roper had been due to stand trial on the charge, but entered a guilty plea last week. Tom Gent, representing him, said that his client was “utterly shattered” by what had happened and was still unable to sleep properly.
The court heard that the guideline given to judges in cases of “momentary inattention” causing death was a low-level to high-level community order.
As well as the suspended sentence, Roper was banned from driving for two years and made subject to a five-month electronically-monitored home curfew.
Durham Hall conceded that the sentence would not satisfy the victim’s family or many of the public.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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54 comments
Seems like an incredibly harsh sentence really, when all he had to do was say he didn't know why he'd done it.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/driver-melanie-last-passes-heartfelt-s...
Truly, a driving licence is a licence to kill. With impuity. Should all driving licences start with 00?
Yet merely threatening to kill your MP. 4 months!
What governs people's actions is mostly the culture that surrounds them (bar the odd sociopath).
The law is supposed to be codifying the rules that society at large thinks should set the boundaries for acceptable behaviour. The penalties that result from breaking the rules should be the ones that society at large thinks appropriate. When that breaks down, for example when juries refuse to convict for obvious rule breaking, we get the situation we have now with driving in a way that results in death and serious injury to a particular group having limited consequences.
What we need is a change in culture, together with stringent enforcement of the current rules. It worked with drink driving, that used to be socially acceptable 10-15 years ago, it's not now. Regardless of whether prison 'works', and I don't personally think it works well, if you want to change the prevailing culture it's not enough to simply hope that public information films will do the job.
Significant consequences, reduced tolerance and powerful communication of the message that killing people while driving is not socially acceptable is the way forward
IMHO.
The pass was dubious for the BMW, as there was oncoming traffic...
The offender assumed that the road ahead was clear and willfully went for the pass without vision of the road ahead.
I bet he probably thought to himself 'that BMW is overtaking close to teh KA', I'll give him more room. BANG
So he is not punished, he can drive legally again in 2 years' time, and there's no apparent attempt to retrain him to drive properly. Why do we have courts at all for drivers, why not just accept that they are above the law?
It's was not “momentary inattention”. It was a bad decision. The Highway Code says in Rule 163 You should "not assume that you can simply follow a vehicle ahead which is overtaking; there may only be enough room for one vehicle."
It was more than bad, it was dangerous.
He was trying to overtake a car that was already trying to overtake the Ka.
And the judge tries to make out that it was the best sentence available?
That's not the way I read it, I read it that he was trying to overtake the ka behind another car (BMW) but giving more space between him and the car he was overtaking than the BMW did.
The Huddersfield paper makes it clearer.
The BMW was overtaking the Ka, but this POS was positioned even further out to overtake the BMW, so all three cars were occupying the entire width of the road and the cyclist had nowhere to go.
Bradford Crown Court heard how Roper had been travelling behind a BMW which was trying to overtake a slower moving Kia car and Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said the defendant should have waited before making the manoeuvre.
Mr Stoker was able to ride past the on-coming BMW, but he was hit by the Citroen which had pulled out further.
Prosecutor Stephen Wood told the court that although the A6025 road was theoretically wide enough to allow the overtaking manoeuvre and leave enough space for an on-coming cyclist, in reality it depended upon the position of the vehicles.
“This collision occurred when the defendant pulled out further into the offside than the BMW and collided with Mr Stoker, who was there to be seen,” said Mr Wood."
I can't see how this is careless, it is a deliberate attempt to carry out a highly dangerous action.
I fail to see why even the prosecutor said that there was room for three abreast. That would have been more like some kind of pathetic mitigation offered by the defence.
That sounds like what I've often heard when going through a single lane chicane with a central reservation so cars cannot overtake properly (North Somerset side of the Clifton Suspension Bridge for those who know it): "There was plenty of room for me to get past if only you'd moved over against the kerb you selfish so-and-so!"
I've just read the report on the Huddersfield Examiner and it still reads to me that he was not trying to overtake the BMW. It reads that the BMW overtook the Kia in a close pass scinario because of the awareness of the oncoming bike. Roper being unaware of the oncoming bike made the same manouvre following the BMW but gave the Kia a wider pass. Looking at the pictures on the papers report there is definately not enough room for cars to fit 3 abreast so I very much doubt that Roper was trying to overtake the BMW or that the prosecuter said that there was room for 3 cars abreast. It's more likely that the prosecuter was saying that there is theoretically room for 2 cars and a bike abreast.
Just my interpretation though, I wasn't there or in the court.
Forgive my ignorance, and this is a genuine question, but is this a "should" rule like the helmet rule?
I think the idea of not using sentencing as a deterrent tool, but it is ignoring the fact that at the heart of it, we are all basically savages waiting to get out.
By and large, we do what we believe we will get away with. OK, we all have a moral compass in there somewhere, but the truth is its the fear of getting caught that keeps us in check.
Look at mobile phone use whilst driving. A signficant proportion carry on because it doesn't hit their moral compass, and they know they are unlikely to get caught in the act.
Look at speeding on the roads... it all carries on because we know we won't get caught, or if we do, the punishment will be minimal.
Look at murder... very few of us do that. Why? Well I'd be an idiot to deny that most peoples moral compass will be flashing on this one, but equally;
- the punishment for killing (other than whilst driving a car) is severe
- A lot of effort goes in to catching those that have committed murder
Of course sentencing is a deterrent on a wider social level.
For me, this was dangerous driving.
He deliberately chose to enter the opposite lane. It was a conscious decision. He also chose to complete this action whilst his vision of oncoming traffic was impaired by the car infront.
He knowingly drove in a way that was, by its very nature, dangerous.
That to me is not careless.
I understand that the CPS would accept a guilty plea on death by careless driving as I am sure there are enough potential jurors out there that may have also knowlingly taken such a dangerous risk, that the conviction was unlikely.
However, I'd suggest the severity of the event was enough to get a more serious punishment.
I don't want to live in a society where the threat of imprisonment is a deterrent.
You prefer to live in a society where one person can culpably kill another, and there are effectively no consequences for the killer? It's a very strange point of view. The threat of a sanction affects people's behaviour in all sorts of situations, and it's clearly necessary here to stop innocent lives being ended.
There's a reason why I don't tend to post on these cycling websites, this has reminded why.
You come on here with a point of view which you know is going to be unpopular, and which objectively is pretty indefensible, then you get in a huff when other people disagree with you. You might take a moment to consider if the fault really lies with the other commenters, or closer to home.
There is every need for courts to impose sentences that reflect the severity of the offense with due regard to the consequences of actions. I do want to live in a society where people are held accountable when their action or negligence harms others. More so where that harm involves death or serious injury. Prison sentences are there to deter similar behaviour in others and to make clear the values and expectations that society places on individuals and on their responsibility for safeguarding others.
There is a persistent soft treatment of people when their offence involves use (misuse) of a motor vehicle. Accidentally kill someone with a single unfortunate punch in a spontaneous Saturday night street brawl moment of alcohol inspired stupidity and you will face a manslaughter charge. Get in a car and kill someone after many miles of reckless driving and aggression and you will almost be considered just one of the victims of the "accident".
A lot of money was recently raised for a private prosecution of a motorist who killed another road user, a cyclist as it happens. The case was in court for a few hours before being thrown out. I cannot help but think that the tens of £thousands raised might have been better used setting up a fund to support anyone caught and prosecuted for setting fire to the current cars of unrepetent killer drivers.
And they say Yorkshire men are tough! Lilly-livered judge!
driving on the wrong side of the road against oncoming traffic when you cant really see whats coming up because someone else is also overataking on the wrong side of the road immediately ahead of u.... then hitting and killing the opposite direction road user who you couldnt see....wow.....it almost sounds dangerous doesnt it? in fact the dictionary definition of dangerous is amongst others
"able or likely to cause physical injury"
" hazardous, unsafe, risky"
For proffessions that rely very strongly on precise vocabulary/wording its a shame the courts, lawyers etc. cant recognise a simple dictionary definition of something in a criminal charge. Bizarre.
and yet we all know a jury including 5-6 below average drivers would have a quite him.
I'm not sure prison is the answer perhaps community service of speaking about the event at driver awareness courses coupled with a 5 year driving ban.
get the message out that driving like this has consequences.
Jail for those who deny wrongdoing and are miraculously convicted by jury.
Trouble with that is that for this scumbag it has no consequences whatever. He killed a man because of his own, deliberate, dangerous actions and walked away essentially unpunished.
So let's imagine the victim was not a cyclist but a pedstrian.
Let's suppose the driver's inattention was such that during his ill-timed manoeuvre he killed a pedestrian who was standing in the road waiting to cross.
Would the verdict have been different?
Yes, I somehow think it would have been.
The court would have convicted him of death by dangerous driving.
Why ? Because the pedestrian is afforded some kind of blameless status compared to a cyclist . The cyclist, in the eyes of the non-cycling public,is by nature foolish and risk-taking because he or she makes the clear choice to commit to riding a bike on public roads so must accept all the dangers which that brings with it.
No wonder it's a war out there.
It's no war, it's one sided slaughter.
One cyclist fatality per 3 billion motor miles travelled.
Not great but not slaughter.
Whilst your stats may be true, the issue we have is that the sentencing when it does happen, is purely inadequate. It was only recently that Ms Purcell walked away from mowing down a cyclists directly in front of her car. Had that been a pedestrian then you can be certain she would have faced a stiffer sentence.
Therefore in the eyes of the courts, cyclists are fair game!
I made no comment on sentencing; merely responded to the slaughter point.
"momentary inattention" or "continual mollycoddled disinterest"?
Now that we're at the point where phrases such as "I don't remember it" and "I couldn't see where I was going" are classed and used as mitigating circumstances, rather than damning indictments why would anyone ever bother paying attention?!
You're pretty safe in your airbag filled metal box and the insurance will buy you a shiny new one if you mess up, so you might as well concentrate on something more interesting than the people around you while you're sat behind the wheel, eh!
There's a joke somewhere in this story........it's the law.
Wow a tag for a home curfew, this judge really threw the book at him.
Hopefully he sorts his sleep issues out, poor lamb. The judge probably took into account all the "sleep" the cyclist now gets when just about rewarding the driver for clearing the road of 2 wheeled menaces.
How is it "momentary inattention" if you're in the middle of an overtake? Surely that should be a moment of maximum attention.
No fuck at all given by the courts.
My advice, cycle with your D lock around handle bars, prepare to grab and smash any car windows if they pass too close.
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