Updated: Police arrest cyclist after bus driver's emergency stop leaves passenger seriously injured

In order for there to be a prosecution for assault first there has to be an assault.
this is defined by case law as "an assault is committed where the defendant intentionally or recklessly causes the victim to apprehend immediate unlawful personal violence."
hard to see how what this person did could be construed as this.
That said, that's the legal definition and is for the courts to apply. You could argue that a robust approach by the police who arrested him, is appropriate, an arrest being only the start of the process. The arrest is on suspicion of assault, and all law is ultimately defined in the court room.
It's a shame the police seem to be incapable of taking such a robust approach whether the offender is a cyclist or driver or anything else for that matter. I suspect there's a large range of reasons for this, ranging from incompetence all the way up to fear of being sued for breaching someones human rights, via being hamstrung by bureaucracy and dwindling resources.
I hope the old chap recovers fully, but bizarrely, if he doesn't, a prosecution for manslaughter could take place, as this requires no assault, only that an unlawful act directly led to the death. (don't quote me on the latter it's a while since i killed anyone).

Some magnificent victim blame as usual in these comments.

Cyclist would have been better off staying than running, it looks like a guilty action. Although who knows, could have been scared of passengers yelling at him. Buses should be equipped with cameras for this stuff. I hope the bus driver doesn't get more credibility on his account of what happened as I've seen bus drivers do some amazingly dumb stuff.

Dangerous Cycling, yes. Assault, no. That charge is doomed to fail.

The Police should also consider Wanton and Furious (max 2 years in prison). Dangerous is a max £2500 fine. I gather the bus has onboard CCTV? Also street CCTV? With that it could be pretty damming.

Hope the kid gets the book thrown at him. It is only a shame similar standards of road use regarding driving are not as vigorously pursued...

This seems to set an interesting precedent, or will do if the charge succeeds.
All those apocryphal old biddies, forever bemoaning others' terrible driving, as evidenced by all the accidents they see receding in their mirrors. Caused by people dodging their crap driving. So now if they can be traced they can be charged. We'll see.

Just speculating because I know *very* little about criminal charges, but could the charge of Involuntary GBH be being used to balance things?

To clarify: had it been a motorist that cut up the bus, the driver would probably have been charged with Dangerous Driving but finally convicted of the lesser charge of Careless Driving which doesn't (as I understand it) have the same scope for punishment. Now, taking into account the victim's injuries, a charge of Dangerous Driving would probably stick.

So, does a charge of Dangerous Cycling allow the courts to punish someone equal to a charge of Dangerous Driving? If not, is that why a second charge comes into it?

Rob

This road? http://goo.gl/maps/9IumP
Looks like a nightmare for cyclists.

The worst part of this accident that could have been caused by anything that causes an emergency stop is the fact that the bus seat in a dangerous position didn't have a seat belt. In our health and safety conscious era that seems amazing and would have prevented the accident at source. Surely the bus company has been negligent and could be prosecuted for this.

Hope the old man recovers but it sounds very bad.

FFS-as ever a report about an incident involving somebody on a bike is posted and all the wannabe road.cc Miss Marples and Inspector Morses appear, and using wild speculation and assumptions start trying to piece together what happened, and as ever judging by the posts before the update, jumped the gun.

The facts- someone on a bike forced a bus driver to do an emergency stop. An elderly gentleman has been seriously injured. Some charges are being pressed against the person on the bike. That is all we know- the blame game is pointless until the proper facts emerge and as none of us saw this happen we have to wait until we find out.

Maybe road.cc needs to think about not allowing people to comment on stories such as these until after any legal action, if any, has concluded.
More importantly, our thoughts should be with the injured man.

I hope the passenger recovers.

I had two incidents today's where twerps on bikes jumped from pavement into road in front of the car I was driving. I hurt neither. No Emergency stop as I had suspicions and covered the brake. So why didn't the bus driver. Sounds like they share blame for the injury, but the rider has traffic offences to answer for too.

There are a few interesting questions from this. I hope the elderly gentleman makes a full and speedy recovery.

Buses need to make emergency stops. Surely there is an issue if it is possible for a passenger to fall down & injure themselves in this way.

What if the "thing" running out had been a dog, or someone absent-mindedly pushing a pram/pushchair in the road (see that often around here)

It was a "cyclist", nope it was an individual person riding a bicycle. I absolutely do not condone the persons actions.

It is right that he is charged. It is not right that the overwhelming number of drivers either dont end up in court or or the ones charged with causing injury or death of people riding bicycles get such lenient sentences.

It will be very interesting to look out for the case and the sentencing and compare

Seems spot on IMO. And it's also refreshing to see the victim's grandson make the clarification that this was an idiot on a bike rather than a cyclist (paraphrase). And he quite fairly, IMO, also identifies a cyclist in another incident who should know better.

But I'd take issue with the fact that a motorist would be similarly charged. Some are, many are not. If all motorists were charged thus the Courts would be full to breaking point. The problem generally is lack of evidence.

best wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured man. If the CPS is going to charge people with this level of crime, I have no problem with it. As long as it is applied equally to all road users. The next time someone doors a cyclist and fractures their heel, as happened to me 3 years ago, they should be charged with involuntary ABH or GBH as is relevant.

Many thanks to Chris Gurton for posting a pretty comprehensive report of the incident, and I'm sure we all wish your Grandfather a full and speedy recovery.

I think what perplexes most people on this site, is that a cyclist is charged with involuntary GBH in these circumstances, when that would appear never to happen to any other road user in similar circumstances. I think we can all agree, that from the reports, the cyclist's behaviour was wrong, but what we have trouble understanding is why this law appears only to apply to cyclists?

GBH WITHOUT intent sounds like a very fair charge to me. I hope that the grandfather recovers.

I would like to see this set a precedent for other RTC's involving bicycles though. If this was used as a charge for vehicle drivers involved in collisions with cyclists we might see a calming down of aggressive driving.

Nasty incident and freakish in that usually the penalty for the cyclist being so careless would be their own injury/death rather than someone else's. I can't see the GBH thing getting very far though and if prosecuting drivers killing cyclists due to being blinded by the sun doesn't seem to warrant anything more than a slap on the wrist then I assume the dangerous cycling thing won't get far either.
As others have said, you have to question the bus design to (are there seatbelts?) that doesn't seem to cater at all for the need to sometimes perform an emergency stop yet keep it's occupants safe. Hopefully the injured guy makes a full and speedy recovery.

It seems to me the real story is about pasenger safety on buses. All types of vehicles sometimes need to perform emergency stops and this action should be safe for the occupants. Whether the kid on the bike is to blame, or the bus driver, or a bit of both the result is the same and meaningfull prevention of this sort of thing lies in vehicle design.

My thoughts go out to the man who was injured, but how come "dangerous cycling" charge, when cyclists time after time show footage of motorists "dangerous driving" and time after time it is reduced to "driving without care".... even in some circumstances when cyclists have died!

why is it weighted in the favour of the person driving the motor vehicle time after time???

Am I alone in thinking that a bus driver, in charge of a vehicle unusual in being exempt from seatbelt laws, has an extra duty of care to drive cautiously and, given the unrestrained passengers, to try avoid getting into situations where emergency braking is their only option? That is, without wishing to absolve the cyclist of whatever blame, isn't the bus driver potentially also at fault for travelling faster than they could comfortably brake in, given the environment they could see ahead of them, both on and off road?

"After all, if a car driver caused a serious accident by pulling out in front of someone, they too would be charged by the police."

Really? Not it would appear in most people's experience if it involves injury to a cyclist.

Guys! In most cities buses are VERY safe! I've traveled on many over the years. I can however fully see how a driver wouldnt get the chance to prepare for said kid.

You cant blame the driver for this.

Guys - for all of you who are suggesting the driver should be more alert and is to blame think of this, if he hadn't been quite as alert the headline on here would be 'cyclist dies after by being hit by a bus', quite a different spin on things.

I really hope the gent makes a full recovery.

Definitely not the drivers fault! Beats me what charge the police can bring against the young cyclist? Nothing in the law statutes that would fit? He didn't intend to commit a crime; and didn't assault anyone! Law is an ass; and must be some ass-oles trying to enforce it.

Hope the Gentleman who was injured is OK? and making a full recovery.

Firstly, my sincere wishes for a speedy recovery of the injured party, the trully inocent person in this case. Prehaps something can be done regarding the provision of seatbelts on buses, even if not compulsory to use them.

On to the cyclist - Seems strange that "Assult" and "Dangerous Riding" are the charges being brought. Despite various cases where the motorist drives 1.5 Tonne of metal at a cyclist, I've never heard of any motorist being charged with Assault. Dangerous driving is almost just as rare, normally driving without due care..........

Again the law seems to be out of balance in its application.

A professional driver should anticipate the actions of other road users and drive accordingly, so it does seem rather surprising that this driver had to make a severe application of the brakes, and still hit the bike. However we have a very limited detail of what actually happened.

We don't even have the detail of what bus route it was and who the operator is.

The bus driver is not at fault. Whilst at work today i dealt with a bus rtc. The pedestrian was busy on his phone and stepped out into the path of the bus without looking when the bus was no more than 6 ft away.

He headbutted the corner of the bus and bounced back onto the pavement.

No matter what you drive or how good a driver you are you cannot control what happens in front of you, only react.