Driver who “tried to scare cyclist” but ended up running him over jailed for using car as “highly dangerous weapon”

A driver who used his car as a “highly dangerous weapon” to run over a cyclist in a road rage incident, leaving him with life-changing injuries, has been jailed for 18 months in order “to deter similar attacks”.

62-year-old Richard Caseby was cycling back to his home on a Saturday morning in January last year, when the driver of a Vauxhall Corsa almost hit him at the Sun in the Sands roundabout on the A2 in Blackheath, London.

Once he drew level with the driver at a traffic light, Caseby, a former managing editor of The Sunday Times and The Sun, asked him politely “to keep an eye open for cyclists as I’d had a narrow escape”, but the driver swore at him and said, “F*** off or I’ll f*** you”.

As soon as both of them set off, Caseby said that he was carried along on the bonnet of Georgiou’s car, which hit the kerb, throwing him against a brick wall. He suffered serious fractures to his left leg and ankle and a damaged shoulder.

The driver, Marios Georgiou, 52, has now been sentenced by the Woolwich Crown Court to 18 months in prison. The Times reports that Judge Philip Shorrock told the driver: “You used your car as the equivalent of a highly dangerous weapon, albeit you intended to scare him.”

He said a jail sentence was required to “deter you or anyone else from behaving that way in the future”.

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Georgiou claimed that he was only trying to scare Caseby, who he feared would damage his car as another cyclist had left a dent after punching the vehicle during a confrontation five weeks earlier. He claimed as a result of hitting Caseby he now suffers from anxiety and depression and is being assessed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Caseby suffered a broken left leg and ankle in three places and spent months on crutches, having to learn to walk again. A year on, he still suffers permanent pain and walks with a stick and a permanent limp and has been diagnosed with PTSD.

He told the court: “Marios Georgiou mowed me down in his car and left me with life-changing injuries.

“The attack has destroyed my basic fitness and dreams of an active retirement with my wife and friends. My orthopaedic consultant told me that my injuries are truly ‘life-changing’. In short, I will never be the same again.”

Caseby, who used to cycle “everywhere”, said: “Drivers are in a lethal weapon and if they lose their temper for a moment, they can kill you. I knew when I was clinging to the bonnet that if I let go, I would fall under the wheels and be killed.”

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The lawyer in mitigation, said Georgiou admitted the offences on the basis that he did not intend to injure Caseby but intended only to “scare” him.

Georgiou, a barber from Kent, declined to give evidence. He has been jailed for 18 months after admitting maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm shortly before the start of his trial last month.

He has received a nine-month concurrent sentence for dangerous driving. He has also been banned from driving for two years and nine months and ordered to take an enhanced driving test before being allowed back on the road.