"I didn’t think I was over the limit. I hate cyclists, I can’t stand them": Range Rover drink driver left cyclist with brain damage before her wedding
09.06.2022 - 09:01
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A jury has found that a woman driving a Range Rover smashed into a cyclist after drinking Bacardi and Coke. Janice McVicar, 57, briefly stopped in the middle of the road after the smash and attempted to move a deployed airbag that got stuck under the windscreen, before driving away.
McVicar, of Grange Drive, Eccles, then drove down Moorside Road in Swinton before crashing into a parked car and rolling her white Range Rover Evoque onto its side.
The cyclist, Jade Edmonds, who had taken up bike riding in order to get fit for her wedding, was left with significant injuries - including brain damage and a partial loss of sight in one eye - and needed intensive surgery.
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McVicar was earlier found unfit to stand trial at an earlier hearing due to medical issues and was not present during the proceedings. This means that, instead of undergoing a criminal trial, the jury in this case were simply asked to decided whether she had or had not committed the acts she was accused of.
Yesterday they found she had committed those acts.
But, as McVicar’s GP concluded that she falls under the Disability Act, she was given an absolute discharge from court without any time in jail. Instead, her driving licence will be sent to the Secretary of State to decide whether she will be disqualified.
In a ‘trial of the facts’ the jury previously heard that the incident occurred on June 7 2020 at around 6.15pm, when Ms Edmonds was cycling up Moorside Road. The road is governed by a 30 mile per hour speed limit, has two lanes with one lane of traffic in each direction and has an incline.
The pair met at the top of the road at a sharp bend where the woman was hit by