Caller stresses danger of cyclists to disabled people after ‘disgusting’ sentence given to partially-blind woman

3 March 2023, 11:37

Partially blind caller sympathises with woman jailed for 3 years

A severely visually impaired caller has told Nick Ferrari how "frightening" it is "to have a cyclist coming towards you" on a pavement after a partially blind woman was jailed for manslaughter over the death of a cyclist she told to get off the pavement.

Joanne in Swansea related with the disabled woman charged with manslaughter, Auriol Grey, saying: "As a severely sight impaired lady I get around with a mobility cane."

She expressed her fear at walking on the pavements: "It is the most frightening thing for anyone with a sight impairment to go on a pavement and have a cyclist coming towards you."

She added: "What’s worse is when they whiz past you from behind."

Shocked by the three years prison sentence given to Auriol Grey, a visually disabled woman, for urging a cyclist to get of the pavement before they fell into the road to their death, Joanne continued: "I don’t know what her lawyers were thinking about."

The caller shared her belief that Auriol Grey "should have had better representation".

"It's absolutely disgusting", Joanne said.

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This comes as a disabled pedestrian who was convicted of manslaughter after gesturing and swearing at an elderly cyclist to get of the pavement moments before they fell into the path of an oncoming vehicle is said to be launching an appeal against her three-year prison sentence. Auriol Grey was said to have been expecting a suspended sentence.

CCTV footage showed the moment Auriol Grey gestured angrily and aggressively for elderly cyclist Celia Ward to 'get off the f****** pavement' in Cambridgeshire. The incident happened on October 20th in 2020 when the 77 year old who was a grandmother and retired midwife fell off her bike and into the road to her death.

The court heard that Auriol Grey had expressed 'no remorse' until pre-sentencing and after the incident had walked off to a local supermarket and did not wait for emergency services to arrive at the scene of the crash. Her lawyers are now launching an appeal after a bail application made today on her behalf failed.

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Nick heard from Joanne, the visually impaired caller, "I very often call out cyclists, I don’t give expletives but I often get expletives back."

Grey, who also has cerebral palsy, has denied manslaughter but was found guilty after a retrial at Peterborough crown court. The judge sentencing her said her actions were not the result of a disability, they added that the pavement was 2.4 metres wide where the accident happened, and said that it was a “shared path on the ring road”.