Jailed for manslaughter

25Avalon

What about the poor lady driving the car that unavoidably ploughed into the cyclist? She is traumatised by it. Another consequence of the pedestrian’s actions. 3 years does seem rather a long prison sentence but perhaps she will get help in prison and won’t have to serve the full time.

Yes, I doubt she'll get over it either.

All innocent drivers in any accident are usually badly affected by it.
3 years is a heavy sentence, but it will be half of that in reality I suppose.

JaneJudge

Dickens, you have really annoyed me with this othering in your post. The institutions were shut down but no other infrastructure has been properly put in place, parents in their 70s, 60s and 50s and downwards are coping alone with very little respite for their children or siblings with complex needs. I don’t know what advocacy this woman had in place but these people are human beings and if their needs are met properly by social and health care they can live happy live ms that they don’t find so challenging

This isn’t a personal attack btw so shouldn’t be deleted or taken personal as people I live annoy me aswell

I don’t know what advocacy this woman had in place but these people are human beings and if their needs are met properly by social and health care they can live happy live ms that they don’t find so challenging

But their needs are not met are they?

I speak from experience. My late mother, a retired SRN, had to basically 'look after' her neighbour who was suffering from severe DID, who was aggressive and threatening to the other elderly people in the multi-occupied accommodation; had to try to coax him to take his medication, and was almost 'on call' to him - because having worked in that particular field she felt very sorry for him (and so did I because I was with her sometimes when she had to try to calm him).

I am not blaming the victims or 'othering' them, it is the whole system of care that is in tatters. This man really was so disturbed by his 'demons' that he could not live within the community in any meaningful sense. When he was quiet and calm (which always worried my mother) he was unhappy and depressed. Ultimately, she contacted his doctor - I think she was afraid that he might injure himself or someone else.

Sometimes, people with MH problems really are too ill to be left alone on the assumption that they can lead a fairly normal life in the community if, like this man, they are living in an almost permanent state of acute crisis - this man could not. And he was miserable because he couldn't understand what was happening to him.

I'm sorry that I have annoyed you. It wasn't my intention to 'other' anyone.

Gosh one poster accuses me of being too magnanimous to this woman (because I said the sentence seemed too harsh) and now I'm being accused of othering her!

I think I'll call it a night.

Oh - and I wouldn't even attempt to get your post deleted simply because you took issue with what I wrote - I find it odd that you'd even think that!

ronib

Quokka there are a few issues with the shared path as

1. I don’t believe it was signed as a shared path in 2020 therefore it wasn’t shared.
2. It’s width is thought to be 2.4 metres which is insufficient for a shared path according to current regulations which suggest a minimum of 3 metres.
3. The partially sighted pedestrian did not wait until the last minute to express agitation at the possibility of a cyclist apparently on a collision course but started waving her hands and shouting as a protective mechanism.

It was a shared path by custom and practice though. The judge at Peterborough Crown Court said the woman’s actions were "not explained by disability" and that the pavement was a "shared path on the ring road".
The implication is that it was acknowledged by the council that cyclists regularly used the path because it was dangerous for them to use the ring road.

Also, if you view the video the arm waving started very shortly before the cyclist reached the pedestrian. What alternative would the cyclist have had at that point, other than to veer down the kerb onto a busy ring road?

That’s it tho isn’t it? All a bit woolly about who could really use the pavement there.Implication, custom, practice and so on.
What’s needed are either proper designated cyclepaths or cycle users should be confident enough to use their vehicle on the road.No half measures and unclear messages.

The answer isn’t locking people away as it’s expensive (and inhumane)

The answer is putting money into social care which is less expensive

If this woman had a disability and was in community care/supported living then she should have had a care assessment and risk assessment in place to stop this happening in the first place. Instead, someone had died and a vulnerable person has been put in prison

I haven’t read the surrounding media articles but it sounds like her neighbours have reported anti social behaviour but professionals haven’t “signposted” escalation properly either

Most mental health care in the community is atrocious. Not because the staff are bad at the their jobs but because there are not enough of them. In this area there are no specialists for Child Psychiatrists available. CAHMs just reject everybody they can.
People with drug and alcohol problems are very often mentally ill but there is little help without going to rehab (more difficult to get into than you would think even when you want to) and although MH and addiction are often linked, they are dealt with by 2 separate departments with little continuity or contact.
People with specific needs like autism or ADHD generally have to fight for services even though they find that difficult because there aren't enough Adult Social Workers available and even when there is, funding for the help they need is pitiful.
Anybody who thinks this lady going into prison will get help obviously has no experience of the prison system. Even those who have psychiatric help in place when they are admitted rarely get it continued. The whole system is broken and there is little money to put it right. Quite frankly it is bleak.

JaneJudge Wed 08-Mar-23 21:27:44

Also the institutions haven’t been shut down either YET but there is no place for them.

I think many have.

I disagree that there is no place for them. Not as the institutions that they were, but as places of respite for those that need more care than can currently be offered in the community.

There is no logical reason why such respites could not be places where people are treated with respect and kindness in decent, comfortable surroundings, when it is apparent that they simply cannot manage in the community, one which - apart from those involved in their care - is often indifferent or even hostile to their needs and their situations.

Dickens

JaneJudge Wed 08-Mar-23 21:27:44

Also the institutions haven’t been shut down either YET but there is no place for them.

I think many have.

I disagree that there is no place for them. Not as the institutions that they were, but as places of respite for those that need more care than can currently be offered in the community.

There is no logical reason why such respites could not be places where people are treated with respect and kindness in decent, comfortable surroundings, when it is apparent that they simply cannot manage in the community, one which - apart from those involved in their care - is often indifferent or even hostile to their needs and their situations.

I agree, and there is a also small cohort of people for whom community care will never be an option because their disabilities and physical health problems as well as mental health issues together mean that they need continuous medical and nursing care. A very small number of this group need permanent hospital care. There’s a very wide spectrum of need.

It is bleak. Those secure places of respite dont exist anymore.

Tiny number of secure psychiatric prisons take women, but they only take extremely dangerous people, and most are sent to ordinary women's prisons.

Respite doesn't exist anymore. My friend is waiting for respite for her adult child and she's been told she can only get it if she does the medication herself several times a day and the respite placement is miles away. When my own child reached adulthood we were told the waiting list for respite in adult services was 2000 client long, so although we qualified we would have to wait for people to die.

This is the reality

Places like that big hospital in Northants (ie an institution) have no place in modern society but I understand fully well how nothing progressive has been purposely happening in community care for the last decade at the very least

I strongly urge all the commenters on this thread to read the actual judgement. There are a number of erroneous assumptions being made. For instance, she did not carry on walking after the cyclist fell. She offered assistance but other helpers ushered her away. The below link should work,

rozenberg.substack.com/p/why-grey-got-three-years

Blossoming, I read it and felt it was quite a neurotypical response but I've also got access to my own daughters meetings and notes and professionals don't detail everything properly or use the correct language. If this lady had no advocacy or family it is even more difficult to get a clear picture as to whether she was being supported properly (if she needed to)
it is troubling

I will never understand the way the courts decide sentences.

We have heard many stories of people that have punched people and killed them, yet I'm sure have recieved more lenient sentences.

JaneJudge

Blossoming, I read it and felt it was quite a neurotypical response but I've also got access to my own daughters meetings and notes and professionals don't detail everything properly or use the correct language. If this lady had no advocacy or family it is even more difficult to get a clear picture as to whether she was being supported properly (if she needed to)
it is troubling

Reading the judgement Blossoming posted, I thought it was most likely to be that she was living completely independently, it sounds as though she is of normal intellectual capacity but clearly has a degree of cognitive impairment. It’s very difficult for statutory services to be involved with people like her if they don’t welcome what we would see as support but they may well see as interference.

The court heard that Auriol Grey did "not express a word of remorse" until the sentencing hearing, and left the scene of the crash prior to the arrival of emergency services to go shopping at Sainsbury's. Jurors also heard that the driver of the car had no time to stop or change course of action when Ms Ward fell into her pathway
.CCTV shows Auriol Grey shout "get off the f**** pavement" as Celia Ward approached her in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, in October 2020.

" It’s very difficult for statutory services to be involved with people like her if they don’t welcome what we would see as support but they may well see as interference."

Well, denial there is a problem, as they see their world as we would, "normal"

There isnt a single solution to fit all: often intervention only happens when there is a crisis like this, but when it does happen, there aren't enough services for complex psychiatric or neurological in-patient intervention.

Thanks for the link Blossoming. I see it as a clear case of manslaughter - as did the jury. Any assault leading to death should be.

JaneJudge with respect your daughter was not the person on trial here. You are letting your experience colour your reading of the case.

Where I live there are quite a few officially shared pedestrian/cyclist paths and they seem to work pretty much okay. I have never had a problem with cyclists and they have never had a problem with me. I have certainly not read any reports of problems or nasty encounters in our local papers. I do have an issue with younger kids on bikes and scooters who tend to race along pavements that are not officially shared and sometime a bit narrow. I understand that young children are safer on the pavement than on the road, but I think that once they become teenagers, they should cycle on the road. They all get voluntary road safety training from the police at school. At my age, I not so fast or steady on my feet getting out of the way and they really do whizz along.

Blossoming

JaneJudge with respect your daughter was not the person on trial here. You are letting your experience colour your reading of the case.

Yes, I most probably am. I think that’s quite normal though. I also agree with you Casdon

Or it could be experience rather than emotion. Having seen the institutions that were running even in the mid 2000s I can say it's a mix of emotion and experience that say they were completely unsuitable places for people.

Galaxy there was a program not so long ago about how people with autism, some very young, who are still put in privately run hospitals which are completely unsuitable. The placements are supposed to be for assessment purpose and medication reviews but people spend years in them. In the same program it covered a brand new hospital that I’m not going to name that can only be described as institutionalised care

I should have said placed rather than put but some of them (most of them?) we’re sectioned and taken against their will and that of their families in the most inappropriate manner, in my opinion.

I’m sorry my phone is autocorrecting now, I obviously meant were