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Barkerend Road junction in Bradford (Google Maps)Taxi driver who killed cyclist and blamed fatal crash on being "blinded by sun" gets six-month suspended sentence
A taxi driver has avoided jail and was instead given a six-month sentence suspended for 12 months and a one-year driving ban for hitting and killing a cyclist in Bradford, an incident that saw the professional driver make an "unsafe" right turn across a junction while "blinded by the sun".
Fiaz Hussain admitted causing the death of Jeremy Richardson by careless driving over the incident on Barkerend Road, at the junction with Gilpin Street, in the West Yorkshire city in June 2022.
Mr Richardson, 61, a "highly respected" headteacher and experienced cyclist, was cycling to work at Beckfoot Thornton school and was travelling downhill on the route at around 6.30am when Hussain was driving in the opposite direction. A reporter from Yorkshire Live was in court to hear how the 60-year-old taxi driver claimed he was "blinded by the sun", the prosecutor noting that he made the right turn across the cyclist's path "when it was unsafe to do so", hitting him and causing injuries which he later died from in hospital.
Hussain stopped at the scene and was initially charged with causing death by dangerous driving, but the prosecution accepted his guilty plea to the lesser causing death by careless driving charge in August.
Prosecuting, James Lake argued the safest option for Hussain would have been to have stopped or proceed with extreme caution due to the low sun, but instead he made the right turn across Mr Richardson's path.
The court heard that Hussain had worked as a taxi driver since 1990 and had a clean driving licence. He has been banned from driving for a year and will be required to undertake 80 hours of unpaid work and attend 10 rehabilitation activity days.
The judge, Jonathan Gibson, noted Hussain had shown remorse and concluded Mr Richardson was a "highly respected headteacher in this city who over the course of his career had helped and supported so many pupils and staff".
"He is, and remains, sorely missed and it is certain that no sentence the court can impose would be able to compensate for his life at all," the judge said, handing down a six-month suspended sentence for Hussain.
The court also heard from Mr Richardson's wife Amanda who said her husband was "a talented and thoughtful teacher who always brought out the best in others". She added that she had received hundreds of messages from teachers and pupils who had remembered him fondly.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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54 comments
Wheres Matthew Briggs when you need him?
What does IDS think of this?
That the cyclist should have anticipated the manoeuvre?
Highway Code, Rule 237
"Keep your vehicle well ventilated to avoid drowsiness. Be aware that the road surface may become soft or if it rains after a dry spell it may become slippery. These conditions could affect your steering and braking. If you are dazzled by bright sunlight, slow down and if necessary, stop."
A more appropriate punishment:
Four years of community service, eight hours a day for seven days a week.
Driving ban for eight years, car scrapped and proceeds go to next of kin.
Four years of prison suspended for twelve years.
He should owe the cyclist's family his entire income over the poverty level for the rest of his life too
If you kill someone with a motor vehicle and are found guilty surely at a minimum as well as a ban you should have to complete an extended retest before you can re-obtain your driving licence.
Definitely just deserves a lifetime ban. Lots of people choose to never drive. He can easily have the option to drive taken away from him.
The price of life is very very low when it comes to deaths by drivers.
Hitmen take note.
Would be quite difficult to carry off with the 3 sunny days in the UK though.
Doesn't actually have to be sunny all day. Or possibly at all - you just have to say it. Let the other side disprove it if they think or care to: they've still got to convince the jury anyway who're now thinking "yeah, I know how that feels..."
You could get knocked down at midnight and the jury would believe a driver who said the sun was in his eyes.
I'd have thought any driver dazzled by the sun would simply slow down a lot. If you can't see, surely it's not safe to drive?
The sentence sounds very light.
Yes yes, but road crime isn't actual crime is it? Did you see the articles over the weekend about the DVLA figures for those with penalty points on their licences? 10,000 still with valid licences despite having more than 12 points (one guy apparently has 176 points! - tell me the system doesn't work without saying the system doesn't work). Still, I'm sure the usual suspects will be along in a minute to bang on about registration plates & new dangerous cycling laws
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/nov/04/more-than-50-people-have-uk-driving-licences-with-at-least-30-points-on-them
To Duncan Dollimore: Has my suggestion about the revision to the Highway Code regarding Low Sun been put on your agenda for the next round of consultation?
In my experience, taxi drivers more than any other road user seem to take the least care when turning,changing lanes or doing U-turns.
in four accidents I have had with motorists,all of whom who were to blame, two of these were taxi drivers who pulled out in front of me at junctions.
Sunrise in Bradford during June 2022 was between 4.39 and 4.42 am. Did police/prosecution look at the angle of the sun before accepting the excuse? Very convenient but challengeable defence if anyone could be bothered
Hopefully somebody did. Apparent sunrise will be quite a bit later, though, if he was going up a steep hill.
I definitely don't know but grade of the road could absolutely be a factor. That said, if it's true that the sun blinded him, he should still never be allowed to drive ever again.
Wonder if the defence was "one slip in a lifetime of safe driving" and "they're very sorry" or whether they made use of the Incompetence Paradox?
A one year driving ban... one year... what the actual hell.
Fcuk you justice system, that is not justice in any form.
Looking forward to the weeks of media outrage and years of regular calls to regulate "dangerous taxi drivers" by right wing politicians.
Oh, who am I kidding?
If you can't do your job without killing someone through gross incompetence, you shouldn't do that job. I hope this person never works as a taxi driver again.
He should never be able to drive again.
Whether or not the oncoming traffic was a cyclist on a bicycle, if he really was "Blinded by the sun" (TM) then I'm not convinced that he should have been attempting a right turn.
I can't stand the way the law works with incidents like these.
Again this? Any judge who makes this type of fatuous statement when sentencing should be summarily dismissed as not having any understanding of the purpose or mechanism of the law. Sentencing is supposed to impose condign punishment for the severity of the offence and to provide a deterrent for others. Of course there is no level of sentence available that could compensate for the taking of another person's life, in what way is that an excuse for the imposing of risibly lenient sentences for doing so?
There's a logical conundrum in both what the judge said/did and in your response. Your remarks beg the question: what "level of sentence" could, then, compensate in this and similar cases if, as you both seem to imply, none of the current sentences are of any utility?
As we know, gaol does the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do, producing inmates even more disaffected and uncivilised than when they went in, often re-offending to a worse degree when released - and costing taxpayers a huge amount of money both during gaol time and after release. The "best" you can say for such puinishments is that they offer revenge, a thing of no real utility to anyone at all, not even victims and their families, in truth.
"Compensate" is perhaps the central concept worth exploring. Compensation may never be enough but it could at least be used as the nexus of punishments to reduce as many consequential harms of such events as is practical; and perhaps obtain some benefits.
A sentence of years devoting all the perpetrator's time and effort to financial recompense to a victim or their family, perhaps? That time and effort made via work within a milieau wherein the criminal gains a sense of empathy/sympathy for others along with a reattachment and sense of belonging to / affection for a community and the society containing it.
Revenge of the hang-'em-high kind is a natural human response but one that's worthless in changing behaviours or reducing grief.
But perhaps you have no confidence in the notion of redemption?
I agree on the ineffectiveness of prison in many instances with regards recindivism. But a one year revocation of a driving license is an insult. Kill someone through gross and reckless incompetence should mean you can't drive for a long, long time. And never as a form of employment.
More to the point - how will we know they're not driving (detection rates are - like most road policing - very, very low)?
If they do drive before their ban has finished, are they actually recalled to prison to serve their (*checks notes*) 6 month sentence (if we even bother with such short ones currently...)? Or are they solemnly told "you will not do this again, or we will be forced to tell you not to do it again, again"?
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