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Statue of Justice, Old Bailey (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Ronnie Macdonald).jpgDistracted driver who crashed into and killed cyclist then claimed infant son was using his phone found guilty
A distracted driver who was browsing social media apps moments before he hit and killed a cyclist then claimed that it had been his infant son using the phone has been found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
Off-duty police officer Lynwen Thomas was killed when Simon Draper, aged 42, crashed into on the A40 between Carmarthen and St Clears at just after 6.40pm on the evening of 25 February, 2021, reports Wales Online.
It took a jury a little over three hours to reach the guilty verdict at the end of the five-day trial at the Nightingale Court at Swansea Civic Centre today.
The court heard that Draper, from St Clears, had been switching between apps including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as he drove his Ford Transit van prior to the fatal crash.
One witness describing how he looked distracted and veered across the solid white line on the left of the carriageway “several times” before hitting Ms Thomas, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Draper claimed that his 13-month-old son, who was travelling in the van with him, was holding his iPhone in the minutes before the fatal crash.
He said he had given the phone to the child to calm him down, and that he had failed to see Ms Thomas because he looked back at his son momentarily to check he was okay.
But paediatrician Dr Mohammed Rahman, appearing as an expert witness for the prosecution, told the court that it would be impossible for a child of that age to have either the manual dexterity or mental ability to undertake actions that had been performed on the phone in the minutes before the collision.
Those included double-tapping the phone’s home button and swiping between apps, and Dr Rahman also said that an infant would not be able to hold the phone in portrait orientation with one hand while carrying out those commands with the other.
Carina Hughes, prosecuting, told the court that Draper had been “distracted” by his phone, noting that the Instagram app was closed and Facebook opened at 6.42pm – one minute before he crashed into Ms Thomas.
The cyclist was wearing reflective clothing and had what was described as a bright light on her Trek road bike, but Draper’s lawyers had argued that she should have been wearing bright clothing, even though that is not required by law.
In a statement, lead investigator PS Sara John of Dyfed Powys Police said: “Yet again, we see the utter senseless and unnecessary devastation caused by using a mobile phone whilst driving.
“Lynwen was less than 10 minutes away from home when Draper, who was persistently using his iPhone at the wheel, collided with her whilst she was cycling along the A40.
“Lynwen was a respected colleague and a loving mother, daughter, sister and partner who was taken far too soon due to the arrogant and selfish actions of the defendant which have left a young child without their mother.”
She added: “Lynwen’s family have welcomed today’s verdict but now wish to have their privacy respected.”
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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55 comments
That poor family, this should not have happened.
It also scares me, due to the general attitude of many drivers on the roads, how many things could have gone in the drivers favour.. 1) If the child had been a bit older and it wasn't more easily proved that they didn't have the dexterity to switch between apps 2) if the road wasn't so straight and clear 3) if they'd taken the defences argument that the cyclist should have been wearing bright clothing 4) if the cyclist wasn't a police officer (speculative, but does makes you wonder) 5) I'm wondering what piece of evidence tipped the CPS over into pushing for dangerous driving.. if it was the phone use, you would like to think that any proven phone use 'should' be prosecuted as dangerous and not careless (does that mean a precedent is now set?)
The point being that regardless of the sentance Simon Draper recieves for this tragedy, it is now proven that he should not be allowed in control of a four wheeled vehicle on British roads.
I generally agree in rehabilitation rather than punishment, but I do think that there is a bright line that causing death by dangerous driving should have the option of a lifetime ban for driving. If nothing else, the idea that it is impossible to live a modern life without a driving licence is patently untrue and perceived inconvenience should not be a determining factor.
But it's an essential basic adult skill!
Which is why arguing for more support for cycling - or for restrictions on driving - is literally childish!
...one which so many adults have failed to reach even a basic mastery of.
More details of the trial in the link below. Includes the judges summing up and inks to more detail of each day of the trial.
https://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news/23067142.live-simon-draper-trial...
I found the summary by the defence interesting :
"Defence counsel Tim Evans argued that prosecution had not done enough to prove Draper's driving on that fateful evening was dangerous.
"They are nowhere near it (the prosecution to proving it was dangerous driving).
"The prosecution have gone too high (with their charge of dangerous driving by Draper).
"There is a height you have to reach to get to dangerous driving and they have not reached that. Not remotely.""
It's an intriguing concept that not looking where you are going, playing with your phone and generally not driving at all which results in someone being killed is not even remotely dangerous.
I wonder if the judge and jury had trouble digesting that over-egged pudding.
That's just consistent with the defence case that the 13 month sin was using the phone.
Draper was simply momentarily distracted by his son hence not dangerous.
Thankfully, the jury did not swallow this bullshit.
Not really, that quote seems to be saying "even if you accept the prosecution case, which I don't, they still haven't got enough for dangerous driving."
Obviously we haven't got the while story there but that seems to be what he is arguing - not guilty but also no case to answer anyway.
I wonder what height they considered would reach it, whilst acknowledging they were simply defending the indefensible.
I will reserve final judgement until after the sentencing hearing, but this verdict does at least give me some hope. Far too many juries have sided with the driver by believing their lies in cases like this. It seems like these days you have to appear to be an absolute psychopath in order to get a dangerous driving conviction. In such a car centric society many jurors will be drivers themselves, and will understandably imagine themselves in the driver’s situation, wondering if they would do anything different. The old 'benefit of the doubt' factor will then cloud their judgement. At least in this case the prosecution have managed to dispel those doubts.
On a related note, I have driven and cycled this particular stretch of road many times, and there are really very few circumstances where you would 'justifiably' struggle to see the cyclist ahead if you were driving properly. This sadly is very much like the case of Lucy John who died in a crash on the A48 near Bridgend on the morning of last Sunday 16th October. I drove past the site of the crash yesterday, and again the road is a dual carriageway with no sightline issues. I do not know the facts of this latest incident, but again I struggle to visualise any scenario where an attentive driver would NOT be aware of a cyclist directly in front of them.
I think the problem is that the driver is only really looking for the big metal boxes and their peripheral vision isn't good enough to pick up anything smaller than that.
I'm not sure it's even that. I think there is a "but the roads are for cars!" bias coming in here. It's not hating the cyclist so much as "but they've put themselves there. That's an unusual thing (unlike driving) so is more of a deliberate choice than driving. They are choosing to be where they are - in some way - not supposed or expected to be." This is where the "victim blaming" starts - "It is at least partly their responsibility. They didn't have to be there. They were cycling around cars - they took a risk!"
(And yes - I know we're blind to the fact that people in motor vehicles kill themselves and each other not infrequently. We also are shocked to hear of motorists killing pedestrians on pavements although this happens not infrequently.)
This crops up here in our collective consciousness on road.cc too - no shortage of "better safe than dead" or "better alive than right". Well, yes. But this obviously means we all accept the status quo and/or that convenience for drivers is a given - even at the cost of the safety of everyone else using the roads.
The unanswered thing for me is that the victim was a police officer. Did the jury think 'she was a police officer, so would have made sure she was visible, so claims to the contrary are wrong'. Or did they decide that police officers need protection and this was a chance to punish someone?
I've heard it suggested (by lawyers of my acquaintance) that irrelevant personal details of a crime victim should be kept right out of court as they tend to sway juries, apparently (and anecdotally) if the victim is a nurse, charity worker, in the armed forces or in any other generally admired section of society it's easier to secure a conviction.
I must admit that same thought did cross my mind too.
Looking at other reports on this, Draper is out on bail until sentencing. Presumably that means he has yet to be banned from driving, so Lynwen's family might have the pleasure of seeing their daughter's killer driving around in the machine he used to kill her.
...and then the pleasure of his alibi being used again as an excuse not to jail him. Perhaps he might even use the Slatterthwaite manoeuvre - using the passenger being traumatised by the experience of the appalling driving as mitigation.
what a low life!
This is an appalling case. It sounds as if the driver hasn't faced up to what he did. My condolences to the family of his victim.
I think they should get bonus fines covering the cost of the prosecution needing to bring an expert witness to prove that his story was made up.
However, most likely he is weeping to his mates down the pub that it is so unfair that they didn't believe his made up story - where's the justice if the jury don't believe your lies?
Of course, the problem with his defence is that if you are being distracted, you should= not be driving. It seems to be built on the principle that if you have a child in your car, the child is more important than the driving. Perhaps the jury grasped the underlying implications of that argument.
Except in his case his child came second in importance, and his driving third, after his obsession with social media. I expect he's one of those parents who hold their phone in front of their face, pushing the buggy, all the time ignoring their wailing child. I really hope he doesn't continue to drive while on bail. Apart from the risk to other road users, there's also a child protection issue. It was fortunate for his child that he didn't swerve into the path of an HGV.
When will the justice system make proper examples with these sort of cases so that they are seen as a deterrent. Set sentences that scare the shit out of people and maybe things will improve
I used to think that but after reading many articles on here it really comes down to the likelihood of being caught. Heavier sentences won't affect the attitudes to driving whilst the chance of being caught is so very low.
This has been shown in many studies. Sentencing doesn’t deter. Likelihood of prosecution does.
Exactly. People will tend to do stuff that they "think they can get away with".
(I'm also pretty sure that the man driving the Clapham Omnibus (see what I did there?) is not even aware of the pro-motoring bias which seems to be inherent in most trials before a judge and jury...)
I think there's another element with motor crime. 99.9% of the time people get away with dangerous driving. They convince themselves it's not really that dangerous. That's how perfectly normal people who are not psychopaths end up driving like they couldn't care less about anyone else on the road.
The only solution is prosecuting these offences _before_ they result in a KSI.
Not just dangerous driving. I'm still sulking about this morning. Local drive through the village centre, joining main road on a roundabout and then immediately there is a well known difficult junction so I am exiting the roundabout about 20mph. As I am exiting I am checking my mirrors and note an Audi up my chuff. I assume they've just been a bit careless and will ease back as I accelerate. There's a cycle lane with a cyclist, there are badly parked cars and driveways and a car exiting the local Legion slowly on a tight turn so I am not running on the speed limiter but a couple of mph below, probably a real 27-28mph. I can't help but notice the Audi has got closer and as I instinctively lift to allow for the exiting car pulling out in front I notice we are now down to a couple of feet. I then lift for the 20mph before the sign and the Audi starts flashing the lights and I can see them getting agitated by me complying with the speed limit. I consider stopping, gather my emotions and chug on with speed limiter set to 20. They turned off about a 100 metres further on still flashing headlights.
It is driving we expect to see on a regular basis. I'm glad I was in my car not a bike.
An Audi you say. Being driven aggressively you say...
White or grey???
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