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news
Falkirk Sheriff Court (via Google Street View)Curfew for “red mist” hit-and-run driver who deliberately rammed cyclist
A hit-and-run driver described by a judge as having had a “red mist” descend upon him when he deliberately rammed a cyclist, causing him multiple injuries, has walked free from court after a judge imposed a curfew on him. It’s a case that once again raises questions over sentencing.
James Reid, aged 68, had pleaded guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court last week to causing serious injury by dangerous driving – an offence that carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
However, the Falkirk Herald reports that Sheriff Alison Michie declined to impose a custodial sentence on Reid, instead placing him under a curfew – in Scots law, a restriction of liberty order – between the hours of 8pm and 7am.
The court was told that Reid believed the cyclist had bumped into his car on Carron Road, Falkirk, on 22 November 2019.
Dashcam footage showed the driver swerving at the cyclist and knocking him off his bike, with the victim sustaining multiple fractures.
At trial, Reid acknowledged that he had “behaved badly” and “done wrong,” and that he was “genuinely remorseful.
The court was also told that he had paid damages to the victim, although the amount was not reported.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Michie noted that he had no prior convictions and an unblemished driving record, but also highlighted several aggravating factors.
She told him: “You are 68 years old and a first offender and you have a clean driving licence according to the information provided by the DVLA. However, there are a number of aggravated factors to this offence.
“The manner of your driving saw you repeatedly swerving until you struck the cyclist with your car to his very seriously injury – fracturing a vertebra and his pelvis.
“You say you experienced a red mist, believing him to have hit your car and you drove after him with the intention of speaking to him.
"You also did not stop to offer assistance – instead you turned your phone off and drove home.”
Besides the curfew that was imposed on him, Reid, from Bannockburn, was also banned from driving for two years.
It’s the second case we have reported upon here on road.cc today in which a motorist who pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving escaped prison.
Earlier, we reported how Surrey driver Leah Roots was handed a suspended prison sentence after admitting the offence, as well as drink driving and failure to stop, following an incident in August 2021 that left a cyclist in Kent with a broken neck.
> Drunk driver who crashed into cyclist, breaking his neck, walks free from court
The offence, under section 1A of the Road Traffic Act 1988, was created by section 143 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, with Cycling UK having campaigned for such an offence to be introduced, carrying as it does a longer potential jail term than the two-year sentence that can be imposed for dangerous driving.
We’ve reported on a number of cases in which drivers convicted of the offence have not been given custodial sentences, as well as others in which they have – typically, where there are aggravating factors such as failure to stop, as happened in both the cases we have reported on today.
In one such case in 2017, a senior judge said that he would write to the Secretary of State for Transport and the Lord Chancellor to ask them to review the maximum penalties in cases where someone sustained serious injury where there were aggravating factors on the driver’s part.
That followed a case in which businessman Owen Finn was jailed for three years for causing catastrophic and life-changing injuries to 16-year-old cyclist Kiernan Roberts in a drink-driving incident.
Finn, who admitted four offences including causing serious injury by dangerous driving, was also banned from driving for 11-and-a-half years, and must pass an extended test before he can drive again.
Judge Jeremy Richardson said: “I echo the views of the Court of Appeal in the case of Jenkins [2015] where a level of criticism was directed at the maximum sentence of five years for crimes of this kind.
"I respectfully agree with those observations, and it has to be said that a case of this kind, with so many exceptionally serious features, would have warranted a higher level of sentencing had it been open to the court.
"There is simply not enough room for manoeuvre within the bracket currently open to the court to tailor the sentence in a sufficiently punitive way in a case of exceptional seriousness. Such a facility obtains when death has occurred, but not where, as here in this case, life-shattering injuries have been caused as a result of a level of utterly deplorable dangerous driving with many aggravating features.
"In consequence, I shall send these sentencing remarks to the Secretary of State for Transport, and the Lord Chancellor. I simply, and respectfully, invite reconsideration of the maximum penalties open to the court in cases where serious injury has been caused due to seriously deficient driving, and several aggravating features are present. Ultimately, this is a matter for Parliament,” he added.
In 2014, then Prime Minister David Cameron announced a review of the investigation, prosecution and sentencing of road traffic offences, but despite inviting evidence, the promised review has never been published, to the frustration of MPs campaigning on the issue, as well as Cycling UK which has repeatedly called for tougher sentences to be imposed.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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42 comments
If you think this incident is bad, have a look at this link....
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/driver-killed-biker-at-random-by-de...
I used to regularly solo / twin out to the Kelpies, or go through Falkirk on a Kincardine Bridge/ Forth Road Bridge loop.
Guess I won't be doing that in groups smaller than 4.
It's cocksockets like this that make me think twice... you don't have to actually do anything to them - they just have to *think* you have.
So, lets get this straight, You guys and girls living in the UK , practicaly live in a country that tolerates murder of someone riding a bike by means of a car!? Practicaly speaking, you don't need to hire a gunman to kill someone you hate and stay away from prosecution, you just need to persuade him/her to ride a bike, ram him/her with your car and get away with some minor jail time at the most! WTF is this? I bet this is true on a lot of coutries
True. We have good beer, some world-renowned cheeses and a countryside and climate that suits me though. So on balance I'm staying.
Also the death and serious injury statistics in the UK are about the best in the world. That has come at the cost of making it inconvenient (up to impossible if you have disabilities) and unpleasant to get places if you don't have a car however.
I just wish it was much more lot like this here.
It's a small price to pay for enjoying the fruits of 12 years of continuous rule by the same political party. Can you just imagine what a political institution can accomplish given 12 years of control?
And they've done so much for the country and its people in those 12 short years. It's hard to understand why some ingrate curmudgeons don't appreciate them quite as much as us enlightened people.
FTFY *cough* Procurement fast lane *cough* (as a topical example, of many...)
It is now Standard Operating Procedure for motorists to run from the scene where they have injured a cyclist, either deliberately or through bad driving or even through bad cycling, because you might get away with it and running is not deemed by the law to be a further serious offence- you still benefit from the same joke penalty you would have received if you had stayed to offer assistance to the victim.
They really need to close that loophole. Leaving the scene should carry at least the same penalty as driving whilst intoxicated so that there's not the reverse incentive.
Compare this case with the "reckless taxi driver".
https://road.cc/content/news/taxi-driver-who-left-cyclist-brain-injury-a...
So we had a taxi driver who stopped at the scene and pleaded guilty to dangerous driving sentenced 2 years suspended, 160 hours unpaid work, 15 days rehabilitation, and 3 year ban. No drink involved.
This drink driver who didn't stop, lied about drinking and didn't plead guilty to dangerous driving was handed a 12-month community order, with 200 hours of unpaid work, and banned from driving for 16 months
Is it any wonder that drivers don't stop and then plead guilty to careless rather than dangerous driving which the CPS accept for an easier conviction.
Firstly the prisons are overflowing and secondly cyclists are not considered fully human whereas drivers are revered like sacred cows. Almost invariably these drivers have no prior convictions because the chances of them being caught for their constant driving infractions are negligible and their chances of being prosecuted even less. The hatred directed towards cyclists in the media reinforces the idea that cyclists are complicit in driver aggression. The idea that you can drive into someone whom you believe might have touched your beloved car and then claim to be remorseful in court and that counts as mitigation is beyond ridiculous.
It's not the maximum sentence that concerns me - I accept that there will be variations in offences.
I am more concerned with the absence of a minimum sentence, which problem perhaps is expressed as suspended sentences even being available. I would quite happily allow a low minimum prison sentence (28 days?) in some cases such as perhaps this one in exchange for suspended sentences not being available for violent crims - however I think that those may be legal doctrines that cannot be considered together.
I don't understand how taking umbrage at a random stranger, terrifying them, and attacking them with violence to the extent of fracturing their bones does not constitute a serious violent crime.
If you want a slightly lighter note to the thread, compare 2 year driving ban plus curfew until next Easter (give or take) with person who was put on the sexual offenders' register by a Sheriff for 3 years when hotel cleaners walked in on him self-abusing with his bicycle in 2007.
The latter has imo suffered a heavier sentence in terms of damage to his life.
This was a violent crime
Indeed - a violent crime with intent to cause harm for which the perpetrator walked away with a curfew and a 2 year ban. No prison sentence. IMO that is wrong.
There are strange anomalies in the offence Causing Serious Injury by Dangerous Driving:
- There seems to be no consideration of intent to cause harm (Reid case), even as an aggravating factor.
- Minimum jail sentence is 6 months starting point.
I have so many questions I want to ask but really shouldn't.
Another appalling judgement.
Why is this article talking about maximum sentences at all? The issue is not the maximum sentence, its the fact that this was seen as not worthy of the maximum possible.
There's probably another argument to be amde here though. Somebody with anger issues has inflicted serious life changing injuries on somebody else because they felt they had been wronged. This wasn't a driving offence, it was assault and GBH.
I can't understand this. An 8pm - 7am curfew is hardly restrictive, that's almost bedtime for me nowadays! I thought that maybe the incident happened early evening and the perp was perhaps an alcoholic on his way to the pub for an all night bender. But no, it happened mid-morning. A daytime curfew might have been more appropriate.
https://www.cyclestreets.net/collisions/reports/2019960902872/
These two statements are inconsistent: if you want to speak with somebody, you don't immediately try to hide your location and flee the scene.
the question is would the driver have done the same if a pedestrian had 'bumped' his car? Probably not. Or another driver? They may have had words and exchanged insurance details. But would the driver have deliberately and repeatedly driven into the pedestrian until they fell down injured?
I don't think the frequent, negative anti cycling press helps. What it does is legitimise this behaviour as cyclists are always portrayed as law breakers and 'entitled'. And therefore they 'deserve it'.
When somebody has the temperament to ram somebody with their car, "first offender" equals "not caught until now".
For meditated violence involving motor vehicles, "first time offender" shouldn't be a consideration. Given the extreme disconnect that all cyclists know exists between road offences (constantly experienced) and recorded punishment (vanishingly rare compared to offending rate) there will be no dissuasive effect until the courts start to treat all offences that come before them on the merits of the offence alone, not their perception of the offender.
There is no relationship between the severity of punishment and deterrent effect. What does deter is the chances of being caught, and after 12 years of defunding the police and all other public services, those chances are low.
Defund the drivers.
When will politicians at least recognise that while driving "generates tax" we actually all pay to fund drivers? (if you sum up *all* effects. So not just cost of road infra but health, pollution etc). Not hopeful as politicians love dodges to make costs "disappear". Seems lots actually believe them even - like PFI.
they have always been low.
If the chance of being caught for drving offences was high we either wouldn't see mobile use at the wheel, or half the drivers would be banned at any one time.
Yes, but lower now than for a very long time.
.
Crikey, isn't it horrid when facts get in the way of your prejudices?
'The last seven years have seen a hefty increase in overall funding for policing in England and Wales. Total expenditure has risen by £4.9 billion to £17 billion, a real-terms increase of 18 per cent, as the Conservative government has funded a 20,000 increase in police officers.'
.
Someone once told me the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary. I checked. It is.
They have recruited 15k and lost 8k.
The funding isn't as good as you might think.
Meanwhile the increases in population, housing, threats and facist policies affect the actual requirement of funding.
But given that the Tories have been in charge for 12 years, you can't just choose to ignore the previous 5 years when funding was reduced and police numbers cut by more than 20,000.
Again ... facts.
Considering the case was in Scotland I struggle to see how your statistics are relevant.
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