First a plea:
Does anyone know of an organisation who would like to take on a
judicial review against the IPCC ?
In article <
[email protected]>,
Mark <
[email protected]> wrote:
>On 13 Jun 2008 14:49:42 +0100 (BST), Ian Jackson wrote:
>> http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/bikecams/
>
>I've just looked at "Tailgating by and collision with N99 JHC". Almost
>unbelievable!!!!
>
>I hope you reported this idiot to the police?
No. I have already tried reporting criminal motorists to the police,
but it does no good.
In December 2006 I was run into from behind by a taxi driver who
intended to intimidate me but misjudged. I was thrown from the bike
at 15mph but managed to land on my feet. There were three independent
witnesses.
The police took a statement from the driver and one of the witnesses
but decided that it was `not in the public interest' to prosecute. I
only found out about this by way of the taxi licensing office, where
the driver brought in an NFA letter to `show' that he hadn't done
anything wrong.
I complained to the police about all this. They pretended I had
agreed to `local resolution' (an unappealable `track' for dealing with
complaints) and fobbed me off. I complained to the IPCC who told the
police that as I `hadn't signed the relevant form' the police would
have to do it again, as if it were merely a paperwork problem.
In the second police investigation they accepted entirely the driver's
version of events, including the false allegation that I stopped in
front of the driver, despite the fact that the independent witness's
account `tends to agree with' mine (in the words of one of the
officers I dealt with). They even said that I admitted in my
statement that I had stopped, which I of course did not admit as it
wasn't true. The police concluded that it wasn't sensible to
prosecute because I was partially responsible for the crash by cycling
in middle of the road (ie, primary position at 15mph in the 20mph
limit zone approaching a set of rising bollards).
I have tried to get hold of the independent witness's statement and
the record of the taxi driver's interview under caution, but these are
mysteriously suddenly confidential even though they were collected for
use in prosecution in open court. The police have turned down my
Freedom of Information request. My appeal to the Information
Commissioner's Office is outstanding and will take some months to
complete.
I complained to the IPCC again. The IPCC refused to help me get
access to the statements I needed to prepare my complaint properly,
and refused to give me an extension of their 28-day time limit to
allow me to pursue the documents myself. They have also refused to
consider a proposed independent expert report from John Franklin
(which would be based on those witness statements and photos of the
road, etc.) because that would be `new evidence'. The IPCC even
suggest that I should obtain this report, present it to the police,
and then presumably once more complain to the police that they haven't
taken it properly on board and then launch a _third_ appeal to the
IPCC.
Then finally when the IPCC's decision arrived, it turned out that they
hadn't even read my appeal submission. They say `the complainant
states that the police have failed to do X' (a quote from the tiny box
on the complaint form) bug `the complainant doesn't say why' although
my appeal submission _does_ say why.
They uphold my complaint on essentially technical grounds and reject
all of my substantive arguments. The only thing the police have been
required to fix is to properly **** on the original constable who was
the only person who did anything useful about my case.
I have tried to get help from various campaigning bodies. The CTC and
CDF aren't interested. They are pursuing their IMO misguided and
useless strategy of looking for seriously injury crashes being treated
as `careless' or `inconsiderate' driving and hoping to press for those
to be upgraded. Liberty `aren't taking on this kind of work at the
moment'. The Cambridge Cycling Campaign don't have the necessary
resources.
I did speak to my MP. His office made friendly but useless noises, so
I went to a surgery. He was sympathetic and said he would write to
the police to try to get their training about proper cycling improved.
About a month later I got a copy of a letter sent by his office on his
behalf to the Chief Constable saying that my MP was very keen to see
"that the complaint against the cyclist was taken seriously".
If there is to be a judicial review action against the IPCC I have
about 5 weeks left to file proceedings. It will be difficult to do
this myself as a litigant in person without some kind of legal
backing.
See also
http://www.camcycle.org.uk/newsletters/77/article16.html
for a strikingly similar incident.
--
Ian Jackson personal email: <
[email protected]>
These opinions are my own.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~ijackson/
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