No5 barrister Harpreet Sandhu has prosecuted a coach driver for causing the death of a London cyclist by careless driving.
Mr Sandhu told Woolwich Crown Court that driver Barry Northcott, 40, was unaware he had hit the cyclist as he turned left across her path until a passenger raised the alert.
Outlining the prosecution case he said: “He did not see her in the mirrors as he continued to turn as he was not paying attention, and when he made that left-hand turn into her path, his coach collided with her and ended up dragging her with her bike under the wheels of the coach.”
The court was told Karla Roman, 32, was riding along a Cycle Superhighway in Whitechapel in February last year when she sustained “catastrophic injuries”. She and another cyclist had been riding ahead and to the left of the coach before the collision and would have been visible for 16 seconds, and that there was “no reason” for Northcott not to have seen her.
Northcott admitted he regularly moved into advanced stop lines – also known as ‘bike boxes’ and designed to protect riders at junctions – to “stop himself being swamped by cyclists.”
Northcott, from Bromley will be sentenced on September 21.
