Suspended sentence for drunk cyclist who knocked pedestrian unconscious, as Mr Loophole uses case to call for new laws and bicycle number plates

A drunk cyclist who hit two women on a pavement in Cheshire before riding off, leaving one of the victims unconscious, with broken teeth and an injury to her little finger that later had to be amputated, has been given a suspended jail sentence.

Carwyn Thomas pleaded guilty to two charges of causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving and appeared before a judge at Chester Crown Court who called his actions "shameful" and sentenced the drunk cyclist to a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

MailOnline reports Kate Wilson was hit "12ft through the air" when Thomas crashed into them from behind as the group of friends walked to get a taxi in Nantwich, in Cheshire. Mrs Wilson was knocked unconscious and landed on her face after being thrown into the air "like she was a crash test dummy".

She suffered broken teeth and an injury to the little finger on her right hand, the finger later needing to be amputated. Mrs Wilson's friend Samantha Latham also sustained ligament damage to her hand and a bruised hand, a verbal altercation with Thomas ensuing before the cyclist rode off.

The court heard he was "grossly impaired" by alcohol and will have to wear a tag for 120 days as part of an alcohol abstinence monitoring programme, having pleaded guilty to both charges of causing bodily harm by wanton or furious driving.

Judge Steven Everett told the court: "I am not a maker of the law, I am an enforcer. But if I had my way, I would make a compensation order for many thousands of pounds. If you had any compassion and any feeling, any sense of shame or remorse, you would have looked at Kate Wilson as she was lying on the ground, unconscious and potentially dead.

"You would have done your very best to help them, instead of being aggressive and unpleasant which is what you were. Words cannot express how badly and how shamefully you behaved."

Thomas could not be ordered to pay Mrs Wilson compensation as he has little money and did not have insurance.

She told the court: "I have no-one to sue because he has no money and because he was not insured. As a community, people need to be less tolerant of cyclists cycling in areas where they should not be. They can cause real damage. We need more powerful laws for when these incidents occur."

The case has been leapt on by certain sections of the media, Nick Freeman, otherwise known by his Mr Loophole nickname, the lawyer famous for obtaining not guilty verdicts for celebrities charged with driving offences, appearing on TalkTV to make the case for updated legislation and cyclists to be required to display a number plate.

The segment was broadcast this morning, a clip from Mike Graham's show having been since posted on YouTube by TalkTV with a factually incorrect title claiming Thomas "killed two", a title that remains up and uncorrected more than 10 hours later (at the time of writing).

During the show Freeman said: "All we've got is the Offences Against The Person Act 1861, wanton and furious cycling, which was designed for horse carriages not for cycles. So we don't really have any relevant legislation and what little legislation we have, such as not going through red lights, there's no teeth behind it because you can't identify the driver [rider] and even if you can identify them, there's no real punishment. It's a small financial penalty, so the law needs to be revised.

"If you don't have legislation and you don't make people accountable then they're going to do whatever they want. It would be like taking number plates off cars, people would drive dangerously.

"If you don't know who's cycling, if you don't have a system whereby they can be traced, as you do with motor cars, they cycle with impunity, they can do what they like and that's exactly what's happening.

"There's no means of identification in the majority of cases. It's very simple, there just needs to be parity. We have the same conversations and we will keep having them until the government says 'right, you're going to have number plates, you're going to have insurance, you cannot drive [ride] above the speed limit'."

Freeman has long since received weak to, at best, lukewarm support for his number plate calls, most recently getting shut down by a Jeremy Vine show panel discussing the matter, two years on from his petition that scraped across the 10,000-signature threshold, only to be emphatically rejected by the government.

> Is there anywhere cyclists are required to be licensed, and how has it gone in the past? Or is it just North Korea?

There has more recently been more support politically for 'dangerous cycling' laws, the previous Conservative government ready to pass "dangerous cycling" laws, legislation that was put on hold by the election. The Labour Party also said during the campaign that it "will change the law to protect people from dangerous cycling" if it was in government next, although this statement was not seen in the party's manifesto or King's Speech, not that its omission from headline policy precludes future legislation.

Now, a spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said: "The safety of our roads is an absolute priority for this Government, and that's why we are committed to delivering a new Road Safety Strategy – the first in over a decade. We will set out next steps on this in due course."

The topic of dangerous cycling attracted widespread national print and broadcast media coverage in May, during the aftermath of a coroner's inquest being told that no charges would be brought against a cyclist who was riding laps of London's Regent's Park when he crashed into a pensioner, causing her fatal injuries.

> No charges brought against Regent's Park cyclist after high-speed crash in which pensioner was killed while crossing road

The cyclist, Brian Fitzgerald, was riding in a group at a speed of between 25mph and 29mph at the time of the fatal crash, which led to the death of 81-year-old Hilda Griffiths. The speed limit in the park is 20mph, but the Metropolitan Police confirmed that it does not apply to people riding bicycles (as is the case throughout the country), and that the case had been closed because there was "insufficient evidence for a real prospect of conviction".

Of course, even with legislation to offer parity between sentences for dangerous driving and cycling offences, there is no guarantee of a more serious sentence than the one Thomas received for his injuring of the pedestrians in Cheshire.

In December, we reported that a motorist, who was found with a bottle of alcohol in her car and to be slurring her words, having fled scene after hitting and injuring a cyclist in a collision, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, a less severe sentence than Thomas (although she was ordered to pay the victim compensation).

Likewise, in November, an "arrogant” speeding driver with drugs and alcohol in his system avoided jail for killing a cyclist. Harry Bennett was sentenced to an almost identical punishment as Thomas received, despite Bennett having killed 77-year-old Geoffrey Dean.

Bennett, who killed Mr Dean while speeding at up to 51mph in a 30mph zone, and who was found to have traces of ketamine, cocaine, and alcohol in his system at the time of the fatal collision, was sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years.