Do the Police not care?

[BSRU]

If someone was actually stupid enough to threaten to kill me and I caught on camera I would definitely report it the Police and expect them to do something about it.
As reported in the news recently some guy is in trouble with the Police for tweeting, (twating in my opinion), that a journalist should be stoned to death because he did not agree with her views.

 

[magnatom]

I should point out that I have pointed out this thread to Martin, as he may want to comment himself. It's an interesting and worthwhile debate in my opinion.

 

[Origamist]

The problem is that I can understand (though not support) the reaction of the police/CPS. Looking at the footage, in devils advocate mode, you can almost see a wry smile on the face of the driver when he agrees that he has threatened to kill him. Thus I can understand the reluctance to pursue the driver further.

Yes I entirely agree that any threat of being killed is unacceptable. Yes it should be stamped out. However, due to the fact it is fairly obvious from the footage that the driver has no real intention to follow up the threats (he accelerates away), I don't think it is the best footage to make a stand with.
I also did say above that I can understand why he is doing it, and that a stand has to be made. However, imagine this did go to court, and imagine that it got publicity. Now imagine how the general public would look at the footage. If I'm honest (putting on my joe public hat) I think most people would think that the cyclist was over-reacting, thus negating any positive impact. Yes, you and I know how unacceptable this behaviour is, but I doubt many non cyclists would.

Yes you are right, I probably have become inured to this type of abuse, but so has most of the public. We need a strong case to defend in the first instance and to work from there, IMO.

Having said all of the above, I admire Martin and what he is doing and wish him the best of luck with it.

Mags, it's a serious offence in itself. As I understand it, threats to kill have a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment...

What worries me is that you are effectively saying that Porter should (ideally) wait until he can capture on camera a threat to kill, combined with a gangsta mime of a trigger pull to the head, a clear, menacing and preferably shouted: “I’ll kill you, you cycling Nazi”; and for good measure: an intimidatory swerve towards the cyclist as this would make for more compelling footage for a non-cycling audience. That’s as maybe, but this is for the legal system to decide: not Mondeo man, a Youtube viewer, or members of cycling fora.

I'm interested, as I want to see the criminal threshold for incidents like this.

 

[magnatom]

Mags, it's a serious offence in itself. As I understand it, threats to kill have a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment...

What worries me is that you are effectively saying that Porter should (ideally) wait until he can capture on camera a threat to kill, combined with a gangsta mime of a trigger pull to the head, a clear, menacing and preferably shouted: “I’ll kill you, you cycling Nazi”; and for good measure: an intimidatory swerve towards the cyclist as this would be more compelling footage for a non-cycling audience. That’s as maybe, but this is for the legal system to decide, not Mondeo man, or a Youtube viewer, or members of cycling fora.

I'm interested, as I want to see the threshold for indicents like this.

Oh come on Origamist, you know fine well I'm not suggesting that wait for a more serious incident. Hopefully such an incident will never happen. All I'm saying is that if you want to change attitudes and perceptions you have to have a good case to do that. As I said above, I just think that if this were to go public then it wouldn't necessarily have a positive reaction from Joe Public. I am sure many would see this and think....bl**dy cyclists. always complaining about nothing etc.

What I think Martin should do, is help others who have footage that illustrates this issue more clearly (something that will happen inevitably). He obviously knows his law well, and could certainly help others.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

CPS went ahead with the twitterjoketrial. CPS don't want to continue with this. Boy it would be easy to become disillusioned with the legal systems in this country.

 

[magnatom]

Here is a comment from Martin via youtube messaging

I appreciate views may differ on this and if you look at my first blog post you will see I was initially very uncertain whether to report it. The bulk of commentators on my site thought I should.
Do bear in mind that the threat was not delivered when he was grinning sheepishly into my camera (which I think he spotted halfway through saying 'cocky ****') but earlier, in a menacing manner when, as he had obviously been planning for many minutes, he pulled alongside me (close) and make his threat.
I knew that the threat was not likely to be picked up on the camera so, lawyer as I am, thought it might be useful to get confirmation that I had heard right.
What he did was unquestionably unlawful and, in my view there is the evidence to prove it quite conclusively. Yes, it is widespread, but so is speeding and if the evidence is there speeders get a fixed penalty; it hardly matters that in many other cases speeders get away with it, or that there are worse instances of speeding.
Bear in mind also that all the Police Constable sought to do was to issue the driver with a fixed penalty notice for threatening/abusive behaviour, but the CPS lawyer apparently told him he shouldn't do that.

 

[Origamist]

Oh come on Origamist, you know fine well I'm not suggesting that wait for a more serious incident. Hopefully such an incident will never happen. All I'm saying is that if you want to change attitudes and perceptions you have to have a good case to do that. As I said above, I just think that if this were to go public then it wouldn't necessarily have a positive reaction from Joe Public. I am sure many would see this and think....bl**dy cyclists. always complaining about nothing etc.

What I think Martin should do, is help others who have footage that illustrates this issue more clearly (something that will happen inevitably). He obviously knows his law well, and could certainly help others.

You seem keen to want to widen this out to the court of public opinion - I'm not quite sure why, but I'll go down that path too.

I'm keen to see this particular muppet (at the very least) get a visit from Inspector Knacker and a FPN as it will highlight that the incident is worthy of police time and hopefully punishment; not because it is the most heinous crime perpetrated on our roads - but precisely because it is all to commonplace and often accepted as part of the cut and thrust of negotiating a bike through traffic.

If some kind of justice can be seen to be done in this case, it will hopefully send a message to bullying drivers that this behavior has no place in a civilized society, i.e. they can't get away with threats to kill whilst in charge of heavy machinery.

I suspect as this correspondence continues between Porter and the CPS, cycling mags, blogs and hopefully campaigning organizations will take an interest (although I suspect they are already...).

 

[magnatom]

When it comes to what happens on the road, the reality of road interaction, the only court that really applies is, as you put it the 'court of public opinion'. With regards to the changes in drink driving,as far as I am aware, it wasn't really the threat of police action that reduced the rate of drink driving, but the social taboo that was eventually associated with it. Legislation and the application of legislation is all good, but there needs to be a groundswell of opinion that attitudes and actions like that are unacceptable towards vulnerable road users. As it stands there is, at best, apathy.

However, perhaps you are right. Perhaps if the police are seen to take a strong hand in 'minor' incidents like these that will have an effect. I'm just concerned, through some personal experience, that publicity can often backfire unless the 'case' is watertight.

We will see how it progresses, and I will certainly be backing Martin as he continues to pursue this.

 

[gaz]

The problem from my view (having been in the same position before and trying to report it) you can't easily hear the driver saying the threat the first time or see the look on his face.
So whilst yes, the driver does admit that he threatened to kill him, it is only on video when martin asked him if he said that. This could easily be thrown out of court, the driver could easily claim that he miss heard what he said. And lets be honest, we've all been tooted at whilst taking a primary position and the driving displayed here could be improved on, it's not the most dangerous that any of us have experienced.

Even here where you can quite clearly see the driver passing me far too close, turning across my path and threatening to punch me in a clearly malicious tone, i doubt anything will happen.

I'm not saying that martin shouldn't try, or that what he is doing is bad, i just think this one isn't going to go far but good luck to him.

 

[downfader]

My years of messing with audio and recording gear I reckon it would be very possible to forensically enhance the audio to get a clearer sound from the driver. This has been done with CCTV for years and audio is much easier to enhance.

 

[As Easy As Riding A Bike]

@Mags, Gaz

The guy purportedly threatened to kill another person whilst being in control of a vehicle that could do just that! I'm surprised that both of you are only offering tepid support (the fact that you've both been on the receiving end of more serious abuse suggests that you have become inured to it because it is worryingly prevalent).

Martin Porter (with his legal expertise) is helping all cyclists by pursuing this bullying moron through the proper legal channels. We should not meekly accept threats of violence and certainly not threats to kill and I applaud Porter for his stance on the issue. I hope the CTC follow the story up.

+1. The guy deserves our support.

 

[Origamist]

http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.com/2010/11/threat-to-kill-letter-to-cps-district.html#comments

 

[gaz]

This is getting interesting. I'm still not sure he will get anywhere with it.

 

[magnatom]

It is interesting. I need to chase up my own incident (with the tanker) which was never passed to the procurator fiscal.

I've been mulling over taking further action over this. This is where we could put the freedom of information act to good use.

I haven't thought through the exact questions yet, but it would be interesting to get from the procurator fiscal and CPS statistics on numbers of road traffic crimes reported by drivers, pedestrians and cyclists and the rates of those crimes being getting to court or other proceedings.

We could make this interesting for the press by getting cyclists in each force area to all send in the same requests at the same time. I think it would provide us with some very interesting data from which we would either find that cyclists perceive a problem that doesn't exist, or that there is in fact a problem.

We would have to get the stats split down into severity of incident etc to be meaningful. Any thoughts on this?

 

[downfader]

It is interesting. I need to chase up my own incident (with the tanker) which was never passed to the procurator fiscal.

I've been mulling over taking further action over this. This is where we could put the freedom of information act to good use.

I haven't thought through the exact questions yet, but it would be interesting to get from the procurator fiscal and CPS statistics on numbers of road traffic crimes reported by drivers, pedestrians and cyclists and the rates of those crimes being getting to court or other proceedings.

We could make this interesting for the press by getting cyclists in each force area to all send in the same requests at the same time. I think it would provide us with some very interesting data from which we would either find that cyclists perceive a problem that doesn't exist, or that there is in fact a problem.

We would have to get the stats split down into severity of incident etc to be meaningful. Any thoughts on this?

A good idea. Ask the CTC Campaigns dept to put the FOI Request as they have a bit of clout, same too with the AA.