Cycle box death judge gets it right for once

On 28/09/2018 00:30, TMS320 wrote:

On 26/09/18 16:12, JNugent wrote:
On 24/09/2018 20:14, TMS320 wrote:
On 24/09/18 16:52, JNugent wrote:
On 24/09/2018 08:54, TMS320 wrote:
On 23/09/18 23:53, JNugent wrote:
On 23/09/2018 19:10, TMS320 wrote:
On 23/09/18 17:23, JNugent wrote:
On 23/09/2018 16:34, TMS320 wrote:
On 23/09/18 11:23, wrote:
Road.cc highlights a very salient piece of CCTV
evidence in its piece.

https://road.cc/content/news/248771-...ed-karla-roman

"Northcott’s barrister, Harry Bentley, said the coach
driver was "desperately sorry" for Roman's death “and
at times he has considered ending his own life because
of it.""

Expressing sympathy and remorse. That's what TMS320 calls
"grovelling" (and treats it as an admission). If that view is widely
shared, it can be little wonder that insurance companies instruct
their polcyholders never to admit responsibility for collisions.

It's necessary to wonder how much his sentence was
reduced by this grovelling. (Compared to 18 months for
Charlie Alliston for not grovelling - and the court
seeming to accept that it was the victim that hadn't
paid attention.)

Alliston didn't express any remorse or sorrow. He even protested his
own "innocence" and thw victim's "guilt" on the internet.

I have no idea what he said on the internet (do you know his precise
words?)

You could easily have Googled it for yourself, but hey ho...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/14/cyclist-charlie-alliston-killed-pedestrian-blamed-crash-kim-briggs-court-told

QUOTE:
Charlie Alliston ... was said to be going nearly 20mph when he mowed
down Kim Briggs as she crossed Old Street, east London, on 12 February
last year. ... Alliston was riding a “fixie�, a fixed-gear track bicycle
with no front brake, which is not legal on the road ... He allegedly
shouted at Briggs to “get out of the way� twice before their heads
smashed together. Briggs suffered brain injuries including two skull
fractures and died a week later.

After seeing a newspaper report about the incident, Alliston posted a
comment online claiming he tried to warn her but she had “ignored� him
and “stopped dead� in his path.

He wrote: “I feel bad due to the seriousness of her injuries but I can
put my hand up and say this is not my fault.�

On an internet forum, he described how their heads collided and hers
“ricocheted� into his. He wrote: “It is a pretty serious incident so I
won’t bother saying she deserved it. It was her fault ...".

He went on to claim Briggs had been on her mobile phone. He complained:
“Everyone is quick to judge and help the so-called victim but not the
other person in the situation.
ENDQUOTE

The mobile phone fabrication was shown to be an absolute lie.

I hope this helps you.

but it is worth a reminder that the victim created the
conditions that demanded avoiding action. In normal circumstances, that
wouldn't require remorse.

I don't agree at all with that remark. But either way, Alliston showed
no remorse. He blamed the victim for his offences.

Pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity (that is,
once the charges and evidence have been made available
and the strength of the prosecution case thereby known)
and saving the Crown the expense of a trial is always
taken into account as a mitigating factor.

When did Alliston plead guilty?

By any chance do you put posts you read through an English
to Scouse translator, compose your replies in Scouse and
translate them back to English before posting? If you came
clean it would explain a great deal.

a) The question I raised was about grovelling, not about
admission of guilt.

The "grovelling" you referred to was as effective an
admission of guilt (in the form of a fairly extreme
expression of remorse as well as an admission that he broke
the rules on stop lines at traffic lights) as anyone could
wish for, and certainly not designed as an effective line of
defence. But did you think the driver literally prostrated
himself in court, with his arms outstretched begging for
mercy?

Why would I?

Because you used the word "grovelling" as opposed to "expressing
Â*remorse" (which is not "grovelling").

Grovelling does not require prostration. It is an adequate word for
the purpose.

But not for the expression of remorse.

So you prefer the word legal people use. Whatever. A road traffic
collision is caused by behaviour before the collision, so it is hard to
see how behaviour afterwards should have any bearing on the case.

It speaks to the attitude of the cyclist towards other people, of course.

Who knows... you might have had more evidence than was reported.

b) The coach driver pleaded not guilty but was found guilty
by a jury. Accord'n ter de Daily Mail.

After he had effectively admitted the offence in his own
evidence.

I assume it was through cross-examination. If there is anything
to "admit", is not possible for a defendant to simply change
plea during the proceedings?

Some offences are obvious and the defendant knows whether he is
guilty (eg, burglary, assault, murder, cycling along a footway).
Â*Others (such as "causing death by careless driving" are not so
obvious or well-defined and it in the interest of a defendant to
at least allow the prosecution to prove the facts and how the law
Â*applies to them. This is particularly so with relatively new
offences whose meaning is not something with which all members of
the public are familiar. The inportant thing is to give truthful
evidence and not to behave in court like the accused rider of a
defective bicycle.

(And how come his legal team failed to anticipate the
prosecution line of questioning? Do they lose their fee?)

I doubt they did fail to anticipate it. They may well have
advised the NG plea and letting the Crown establish a case under
relatively new and uncharted law.

If running someone over that was visible ahead for 16 seconds isn't
a clear case of dangerous driving then the law needs more than a
bit of testing.

You obviously know the case far better than do the police, the CPS,
the trial judge and the jury.

What are you suggesting I know that nobody else knows? You can read the
press report containing the 16 second figure because it was linked on
this newsgroup.

Oh, and about your suggestion that they might have wanted to test the
law. If so, do you think they would have told the defendant what their
game was? Plead guilty and get it over with; plead not guilty and sit
through the whole trial go through cross-examination.

Testing the meaning and interpretation of new law (whether criminal or
administrative law) is par for the course. You know that.

Why don't you run round and tell them that they got it all wrong?

I'll wait here for your report of how you get on.

By way of contrast, the "young gentleman" on the brakeless
bike blamed the victim and completely exonerated himself,
praising his own skills to the skies and contrasting them
sharply with the lack of skill on the part of the woman he
killed.

Some part says he was probably right.

Are you such a part?

Yes.

Not quite the right word, I suspect, though getting there...

Although your precis is bound to be as accurate as the way
you
always reply to a poster with a question using an unrelated
collection of words.

There's the difference, even if you don't want, and will
refuse, to see and acknowledge it (which I confidently
predict).

I thought the courts were supposed to punish actions not
opinions.

The judge ran perilously close to judging the driver's opinions i
the reported remarks. It was his carelessness (or otherwise)
within the meaning of the law which was at issue.

You're not agreeing with me. Let's hope the judge in Charlie
Alliston's case was more concerned about technical (as in science)
matters than you obsess about his personality.

The central focus in the Alliston trial was the innocent victim. That
and his deliberately dangerous behaviour (despite his assuarances to
the court that it wasn't dangerous at all to cycle without brakes).

Greasing up and slipping into reporting mode doesn't change your long
stated obsession about his personality.

I am not interested in the personality of criminals. As long as they
stay on the right side of the law, they can pretend to be as damaged
mentally as they like.