A man has been cleared of dangerous driving after a jury accepted that a so-called vigilante cyclist jumped onto his car bonnet.
It took the jury less than 4 hours to clear Paul Lyon-Maris, 60, of dangerous driving and assault by beating following a three-day trial at Southwark Crown Court.
Mr Lyon-Maris was travelling to a physio appointment when he disobeyed a no right turn sign on 9th September 2021. He has previously admitted that offence at the Magistrates' Court.
Lying in wait was Michael van Erp, shown in the image above, who has been dubbed a cycling vigilante for his hobby of filming bad driving and reporting it to the police.
The Dutch campaigner, who goes by the YouTube handle CyclingMikey, uploads his footage to the video sharing site for the entertainment of viewers and the embarrassment of his subjects.
Mr van Erp accused Mr Lyon-Maris of deliberately driving into him, but the jury accepted Mr Lyon-Maris' account that Mr van Erp had actually jumped on his car bonnet and refused to get out of the road.
This reminds me of a case I was once involved with.
A cyclist accused a driver of colliding with his bike as he pulled away from a set of traffic lights. The CPS had decided to charge the driver with driving without due care and attention, which is why he appeared before us for trial. For added good measure, the cyclist threw in that the driver had been verbally abusive after the alleged collision had occurred.
Driving without due care and attention (careless driving) is an offence under section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. A person is guilty of the offence if they drive "a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road or place."
The maximum penalty on summary conviction is an unlimited fine and the court has the discretion to impose a disqualification.
The driver point blank denied colliding with the cyclist. He maintained that he had given the cyclist adequate clearance when they had both pulled away from the traffic lights.
The case hinged on the helmet-mounted camera footage of the cyclist and his live evidence from the witness box.
Very quickly it became apparent that the complainant had what I'll politely describe as firm views about the rights of cyclists to use the highway.
To be blunt, he wanted his car's width of space and woe betide any driver who encroached even one inch into it - to paraphrase Animal Farm, it was very much a case of "two wheels good, four wheels bad".
The prosecution's case was that the driver got too close to the cyclist when they were both pulling away from the lights. The front of the driver's car then clipped the back of the cyclist's bicycle, almost causing him to lose control and fall into the roadway.
The camera footage was played and we immediately saw a very different picture to that being painted by the prosecution - the cyclist almost losing his balance and veering towards the car as they both pulled away from the traffic lights; the cyclist then thumping his fist onto the bonnet of the car he had almost veered into.
The driver of the car then passed the cyclist and shouted a few choice words at him through the open passenger window. It was pretty obvious that the complainant shouted a few choice words at the defendant too, although he obviously hadn't included that detail.
The prosecution suggested that the thumping sound on the video was caused by the car hitting the rear of the complainant's bike, but we could all see very clearly that the audible thump corresponded perfectly with the swiping of the complainant's arm towards the car bonnet.
The defence didn't have too much work unpicking the prosecution's case, so we cleared the driver of the offence.
Call me cynical, but I always consider the videos of YouTubers - be they so-called vigilante cyclists, paedophile hunters or whatever - with a very open mind. Even if they are an accurate account, which is by no means certain, I always question their motivation for recording them.
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