Cyclist handed six-month conditional discharge and fined £26 for riding on pavement with no lights under 1835 Highway Act, as lawyer slams “strange” case

A cyclist stopped by police for riding his bike on a pavement without lights has been handed a six-month conditional discharge and fined £26, after being charged under the 1835 Highway Act, as his “incredulous” solicitor argued that he should have simply been told to dismount and stop cycling – and that the officers had in fact helped him back on his bike after initially stopping him.

36-year-old Jack Robson was riding his bike on Sunderland’s Vilette Road between 2am and 2.30am on Tuesday 30 April, when police officers, who were dealing with another incident at the time, observed him cycling on the pavement on three occasions.

“He was observed not to have his lights on despite the hours of darkness. That’s the set of circumstances in a nutshell,” Prosecutor Paul Coulson told South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court this week.

“I think you’re looking at a nominal fine at best,” Coulson added, the Sunderland Echo reports.

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Robson was stopped by the officers and charged, under the Highway Act 1835, with “causing common danger” by cycling with no illumination in the “hours of darkness”, which applies to the period between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise, and with “committing nuisances by riding on footpaths”.

The 36-year-old was also charged with using a pedal cycle without front and rear lights on a road at night, this time under the comparatively modern 1988 Road Traffic Offenders Act.

Robson, who has 18 previous convictions from 34 offences, the last taking place in 2010, pleaded guilty to all three charges.

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However, defending the cyclist, Ben Hurst told the court that Robson should have simply been told to “get off his bike” and sent on his way without punishment by the police.

An “incredulous” Hurst also claimed that the officers had even helped Robson back onto his bike after initially stopping him.

“This is somewhat unique, potentially, and strange the way he appears before the court. He has pleaded guilty,” the lawyer said.

“He was on a bike at night and without lights on. It was dark but there were lights on in the street.

“Unfortunately for Mr Robson, officers were there, and they took his name. Officers didn’t take any action for 18 days. If the police had told him to get off his bike that night, he would have.”

Robson was sentenced to a six-month conditional discharge, with a £26 victim surcharge, with magistrates telling him that he had committed an “unusual offence”, which “we don’t usually get at this court”.

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Of course, this isn’t the first time the often archaic laws governing cycling in the UK have attracted attention.

In July, a cyclist was found not guilty of the offence – dating from 1861 – of causing bodily harm by “wanton or furious driving”, in relation to an incident which saw him collide with a pensioner as he cycled on a towpath, the 81-year-old woman falling to the ground and dying in hospital 12 days later.

As with the recent coroner’s inquest into the death of an elderly pedestrian in a collision with a cyclist in London’s Regent’s Park, the criminal trial at Oxford Crown Court was subject to national media attention, and once again prompted some to suggest the need for new, updated ‘dangerous cycling’ laws, that were postponed due to the general election, but which Labour has said it would introduce once it formed a government.