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news
Paul Crompton's bike after Derek Pipe rear-ended him (via Twitter)Mr Loophole secures acquittal of cyclist accused of causing crash
Nick Freeman, the lawyer nicknamed ‘Mr Loophole’ for obtaining not guilty verdicts for celebrities charged with motoring offences, has secured the acquittal of a London cyclist who had been accused of causing a crash.
Paul Crompton, aged 54, appeared at Bexley Magistrates’ Court yesterday charged with riding his bike “without due care and attention” following an incident in Lewisham on 24 October 2020, reports the News Shopper.
Oct 2020 I was rammed from behind by a motorist as I was cycling. Unbelievably, @CPSUK decided to take me to court for “cycling without due care and attention”. Today I was given a NOT GUILTY verdict. I was represented by @TheMrLoophole who made sure justice was done. pic.twitter.com/QV3HIN5NVI
— Paul Crompton (@major_rawls) January 6, 2022
The prosecution had claimed that Mr Crompton – a television producer whose credits include the Channel 4 show Escape to the Chateau – had braked suddenly in front of 74-year-old driver Derek Pipe, causing him to crash into the back of his bike.
Mr Crompton, who sustained soft tissue damage in the incident on Ladywell Road, described the charge against him as “insane” and told the court that he had feared being “sandwiched in” between Mr Pipe’s Ford Focus and a row of parked cars and that he knocked on the driver’s window to try and make him aware of his presence.
“I wanted to warn him that he'd done a dangerous manoeuvre and I would hope that a warning would mean he would think about it next time,” he explained.
“I knocked on his window and shouted, ‘Didn't you see me?’ very loudly.”
He said he then rode in front of the car, but was “catapulted” over his handlebars after the driver crashed into the back of his bike, destroying the rear wheel.
“He had no idea I was there,” he added.
Mr Pipe had claimed that Mr Crompton had clipped his wing mirror and hurled abuse at him during the incident, and that he had then stopped twice in front of his car and given him no time to avoid the crash.
He told the court: “The cyclist came up the outside of me and then put his bike across the front of my car towards the windscreen and started hurling abuse, shouting, going off in a very intimidating, aggressive manner.
“I was just proceeding safely behind him then all of a sudden he stopped again a second time,” said the motorist, who claimed he was driving at five miles per hour when he struck Mr Crompton.
“The distance we both travelled was so short it was impossible for me to hit the brake in time,” he added.
Mr Freeman, who described Mr Pipe’s version of events as “littered with confusion,” said that even if the cyclist had come to a halt suddenly, Mr Crompton had not allowed adequate braking distance between his vehicle and the rider.
He said the claim that his client meant to cause the collision was “ludicrous,” bringing about “this rather unique and bizarre situation Mr Crompton finds himself in accused of riding without due care and attention.”
Christina Pride, chairing the bench, said: “We’ve heard two differing accounts of the incident.
“The prosecution has not proven the case so that we are sure beyond reasonable doubt. We therefore find Mr Crompton not guilty.”
Following the verdict, Mr Crompton said that he was “utterly, utterly relieved.”
He added: “Although it sounds farcical you still question which way they will go because it's one person's word against another.”
Mr Freeman, whose past clients include Sir Alex Ferguson, David Beckham and Jeremy Clarkson, said: “The whole case has been bizarre,” and described it as “a complete waste of people's time, trouble and money.
Happy to report a successful outcome for my client #cycling https://t.co/TFOUKQxa1I
— Nick Freeman (@TheMrLoophole) January 6, 2022
“This has taken up three hours of time,” he continued. “It’s cost the taxpayer probably thousands of pounds.
“Mr Crompton will now be commencing civil proceedings against Mr Pipe,” he added.
Last month, the Government responded to a petition posted by Mr Freeman last June on the Parliament.uk website in which he called for cyclists to be registered and wear visible ID, be subject to penalty points if they commit offences and be forced to ride in cycle lanes where applicable.
In response, the Department for Transport said: “The Government has no plans to introduce any such requirements for cyclists. The current trials of rental e-scooters will inform future policy on them.
“The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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142 comments
If you are driving to the conditions (eg 20 on dry residential roads at night for example) You will see and be able to stop for anyone dressed in dark clothing. We should not be building a world (oh too late) where the car is king and we must do all we can to protect ourselves. The car should be a guest and be driven accordingly. A sane driver does not collide with inanimate unlit objects. Though social media it seems highlights alot of insanity!
Can we throw rocks and things, as a pre-emptive act of self defence?
Only if we are very annoyed, or have the red mist....
...and driving a car.
Can we throw rocks and things, as a pre-emptive act of self defence?
Although that obviously supposes the person was not looking at their phone at the time. I wonder if the GPS of the phone being changed whilst a text is being sent is an ability the Police could use?
And also, again, the Court and CPS accepting driving 12 mph over the posted limit in a residential street when people might be obscured in darkness is careless and not dangerous. Sounds like £10k well spent by the dangerous driver.
Sorry but that is simply untrue. By your logic, cars would also not need any lights at night as they are 'inanimate objects'. It seems blindingly obvious (pardon the pun) that objects are impossible to see in complete darkness unless illuminated in some way! Not even a reasonably competent driver can evade the laws of physics. That is not the same as holding pedestrians responsible for a collision.
Visionset was not talking about areas of complete darkness; it's a residential area lit by streetlamps. People who choose to drive through at night are required to do so with lights on and according to the conditions. This is not controversial.
Just as cars ought not crash into fence posts, trees and all of the other unlit objects on their route, the same standard of driving ought to avoid slow-moving humans too. There was no claim that the man was an inanimate object, just that responsible driving reduces road violence. Even Freeman's fanboys aren't screaming for every single object on or alongside a street to be hi-viz (yet), even if it very much fits their victim-blaming position.
Parked cars are indeed inanimate objects and do not require lights on at night, even when parked on the road or roadside.
Entirely agree with your points, but just on a point of order:
Rule 249
All vehicles MUST display parking lights when parked on a road or a lay-by on a road with a speed limit greater than 30 mph (48 km/h).
True. I was thinking about residential streets in general and the road in the article, which is 30mph
Some time ago, I was driving at a legal speed, along a side road at night, so not brilliantly lit but with streetlights, when a male suddenly appeared in my headlights, crossing the road.. I swerved just in time to miss hitting him; it was very close to this bloke becoming grille furniture, with only my good reaction saving him from serious injury or death; no question, the pedestrian would have been completely at fault if that had occurred.
Probably not.
You are required to drive to the conditions. One of the conditions of this case is that you are in a built up area where there are likely to be pedestrians, and another is that visibility is poorer than in daytime. A third is that other road users often don't wear what we might wish then to.
The "male" (not sure the relevance of your perception of the gender here) did not "appear", but traversed into the road in the usual manner, obeying Newton's laws of motion. What you mean is you failed to see them until the last second, and were going at such a speed that coming to a stop was not even considered - "legal speed" is not necessarily safe speed, as demonstrated aptly in your account.
This situation is largely down to you not looking out for other road users - you have the means of killing people, it is for you to ensure you don't.
I'm not condemning you for your initial situation. I imagine most drivers can relate a similar story, myself included.
The difference is the take away. Mine would be "slow down and pay more attention especially at night"
Yours seems to be that you heroically and selflessly saved a life, your driving style doesn't need reviewing cos reactions, and if/when the situation occurs again it's someone else's fault.
I think the context is where you would expect a pedestrian to be; on a footpath or a pedestrian crossing, there's no expectation for a pedestrian to have a responsibility legally to wear reflective items but if a pedestrian chooses to be in the roadway otherwise, eg jogging along the road or jaywalking, then they should share responsibility for being hit by a motorist who is legally driving along the road.
Why do you write about the laws in a country you don't live in ?
There is no jay walking and pedestrians can cross anywhere. Drivers should expect pedestrians to cross and use the road at any point and it is their job not to hit the pedestrian.
A bit like drivers that get away with killing cyclists because they were momentarily blinded by a setting or rising sun, when they in fact are admitting they drove without due care and attention by not driving to the prevailing conditions, ie, slow down when visibility is restricted by sun, fog, etc. Personally, there is no way I would ride a bicycle on a public road where oncoming vision is affected by blinding sunlight.. not the sort of dice I want to roll.
Colours don't really work in the dark.
Cars have headlights and roads have streetlights..
The same applies to all the car drivers who fail to turn their lights on at night, or the ones who drive dull grey cars on overcast days.
There is also lots of evidence of Garage at Large being so smitten with his love for Nick Freeman that he won't accept that Mr Freeman has attempted to blame the victim of one of his upstanding clients for their death. When it gets pointed out to him Garage at Large just buries his head in the sand.
Mr Freeman said "Sadly, because he was ‘invisible’, Mr Steinberg has lost his life." which is straight up victim blaming. Hell, he never even tried to argue it was a contributory factor.... just a straight forward statment which is Mr Steinberg was killed because he was wearing black.
There is also lots of evidence that Garage at Large makes stuff up to attempt to further his points. When it gets pointed out to him.... he goes silent on it..... or tries to say that his statements were taken out of context.
For example he knew that a set of 4 way temporary traffic lights were broken from a 30 second clip where the lights from the viewpoint of a cyclist were at red. He didn't say he thought they were broken... he KNEW they were broken
Well, that is quite extraordinary. His client pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving by doing 42 in a 30 and was given a jail term (albeit suspended) and ban, and Freeman still said it was the elderly gentleman's fault (“Sadly, because he was ‘invisible’, Mr Steinberg has lost his life").
It would be interesting to see Freeman in other criminal cases beyond traffic law, wouldn't it? "Your honour, although my client did randomly fire an Uzi down the street, the fact remains that if Mr.Smith had put on a kevlar vest before leaving the house the bullets would not have killed him; sadly, because he neglected to take this precaution, he lost his life."
ETA in full support of your point and in contradiction of anyone stupid/desperate enough to claim that we don't know if the area was residential or well lit, here is the scene, Leicester Road, Broughton, with, as we can see, standard streetlighting. I daresay some idiot will still say "How do we know it was on at the time?"
Exactly the point made by Mark Treasure in this excellent blog post:
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/from-the-specific-t...
Thanks for that link - there's some excellent arguments made on that blog.
I particularly like the description in the original article of the damage to the wheel as a 'dent'.
Two things that the article fails to mention:
1) A Met police officer driving behind claims he witnessed Mr Crompton deliberately braking in front of the driver. This sounds like nonsense, but might explain why the CPS prosecuted. However, the witness didn't bother to show up in court.
2) Mr Loophole took on the case pro bono. Whilst I don't like his views on cycling in general, I have to give him credit for that.
Thank you for this. Would you mind sharing the source of the info?
Sure, they're from posts made to the Lewisham Cyclists Facebook group by Paul Crompton himself yesterday.
WTF?
He managed to see Mr Crompton applying the brakes through Mr Pipe's car
Impressive, isn't it? I guess coppers must have superior senses to us mere mortals.
Is that the guy who waited until the defendent had placed his bike against the car and take a photo before he got out of his car to approach in the picture above?
Also did he not want to commit perjury in court or just couldn't be bothered to attend as part of the legal system?
You mean you don't have a high level brake light fitted to your bike, shame on you.
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