Cycling thief not punished for knocking out female cyclist in getaway crash

The judge didn't say Watson's action in colliding with Sarah Slater was not a crime, nor that being a drug addict is an excuse. He simply acknowledged that the only penalty available is a fine and imposing one would be pointless. (My only knowledge of this is from the article and I don't know anything about the law. Defence Counsel apparently said, "The matter can only be dealt with by way of a fine and he is not in a position to pay.")

It does seem wrong that in this instance the law seems to treat a theft of property more seriously than a crime against the person that left the victim with bad injuries.

It begs the question of why a community service order was not available. In fact, it has been shown that short prison sentences do no good: it is not long enough for any programmes to be put in place to tackle the offender's drug problem. He would have been better off with a longer community sentence and a rehabilitation programme. Perhaps he could have made restitution to Sarah Slater in some way through that -- doing her garden, mending her bike or whatever. As it is, the punishment given is not likely to prevent re-offending and Sarah may well feel that she has had no justice.

She was seriously harmed - sounds like a period of loss of consciousness, concussion, head injury. So, an increased risk of seizures for the rest of her life.

And with loss of consciousness, the hospital will probably have had to scan her head - exposing her to a dose of ionizing radiation.

And he just gets a few weeks inside. Doesn't seem fair. Maybe he'll turn his life around though.

Well, it was only a cyclist he hit you see. They do not count, they do not deserve the protection of the law. They are subhuman.

I'm sorry, I seem to have stumbled onto the Mail online this morning. I can't find ways to up or downvote comments though, I'm confused.

Did anybody bother to see if it was actually his bike

How in God's name do you steal and carry away £145 worth of cleaning products? Bought some Domestos at a Co-op supermarket last night, and I was looking up and down the aisle thinking "How many?"

No way a 'genuine acccident' This crash happened through the intentional riding of a bicycle directly at oncoming cyclists - that is no accident.

She might be entitled to something under CICA.

Sending him to jail for 2 weeks is certainly not going to help him beat his drug addiction.
I bet Lance Armstrong was always doing this

Didn’t the Chinese have a way of dealing with junkie scum???

Since when was it a defence to be a druggie?
And a 'genuine' accident? When being chased by the Police??
What is wrong with bringing back trial by fire for scum like them?

This story is a bit Daily Mail.

No chance of getting compensation as he's a drug addict with no cash. If he had to pay out he would need to steal more. Putting it bluntly it would have been better for society if during the crash he had removed himself from the gene pool when he crashed. British law failing to deliver/society failing to deal with drug riddled smack heads.