A pedestrian who shouted and waved at a cyclist causing her to fall into the path of an oncoming car has had her manslaughter conviction overturned at the Court of Appeal.
Auriol Grey, 50, shouted at retired midwife Celia Ward to “get off the f****** pavement” in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire in October 2020, causing her to fall into the road. The 77-year-old grandmother was struck by a car in the incident and died.
In March last year Ms Grey, who has cerebral palsy and partial blindness, denied manslaughter but was found guilty after a retrial and jailed for three years, which has today been overturned by three judges in London.
Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Mrs Justice Yip and Mrs Justice Farbey, said: “In our judgment, the prosecution case was insufficient event to be left to the jury. In all the circumstances, we have no hesitation in concluding that the appellant’s conviction for manslaughter is unsafe.”
Celia Ward, pictured with her husband David, was killed in the incident (Cambridgeshire Police / SWNS)
Auriol Grey was jailed for three years, which has now been overturned (PA)During today's hearing Grey sat behind her barristers in the London courtroom, wearing a black cardigan. Speaking on her behalf, Adrian Darbishire KC said: "The trial seems to have proceeded on the basis some kind of unlawfulness, undefined and unspecified, was sufficient to found this offence of homicide.
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"Hostile gesticulation is not a crime, otherwise we would have 50,000 football fans each weekend being apprehended. That certainly does not make her guilty of the offence of manslaughter...the evidence was clearly insufficient for the charge alleged."
Mr Darbishire told judges the trial jury "needed less focus on hostility on her part" and more focus on "the reasonableness of not standing aside where her standing aside would involve moving to her right-hand side, her unfavoured side to let the cyclist past".
The moment Grey confronted the cyclist was caught on CCTV (Cambridgeshire Police / SWNS)
Mrs Ward was hit by a car after falling into the road (Cambridgeshire Police / SWNS)The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) opposed the appeal and Simon Spence KC said earlier it was accepted "common assault as the base offence was not identified by name".
Asked by the appeal judges what actions could have been deemed common assault if it had been identified, Mr Spence said: "The walking towards the cyclist, the gesticulation with her left arm towards the road and the words, 'get off the f***** pavement'. Those words are capable of turning a gesture and nothing more into an unlawful act. We say that is capable in law of amounting to an act of unlawful manslaughter."
Last year Mr Justice Griffiths, sitting with Lord Justice William Davis and Judge Neil Flewitt, refused to grant permission for Grey to appeal against her sentence, and concluded it was "not arguably manifestly excessive". The judges expressed their condolences to Mrs Ward's family, with Mr Justice Griffiths concluding: "A blameless woman had been killed by the unlawful act of the applicant (Grey) with devastating impact upon the family she left behind and upon others including the entirely blameless driver of the car."
He said at the time the sentence passed onto Grey "had to mark the gravity of the unlawful killing," while taking into account mitigating factors - such as Grey's disabilities.
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