A Porsche driver from Harrogate knocked down and killed a cyclist while scrolling through social media posts on his phone, it’s alleged.
James Bryan, 37, was rushing to get some shopping for his parents during the covid lockdown when his Porsche Carrera 911 ploughed into the back of a bicycle ridden by married father-of-two Andrew Jackson, 36, on the A168 between Wetherby and Boroughbridge, a jury at York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Anne Richardson said that at the time of the collision, Mr Bryan’s Instagram and Facebook accounts were open.
She said Mr Bryan must have been looking at, scrolling through, or reading posts on social media in the moments before the crash at Allerton Park.
She said that Bryan had been taking cocaine and drinking at his friend’s house in Cheshire the night before the fatal collision at Rabbit Hill Park.
Although he wasn’t over the limit for either drink or drugs, there were traces of cocaine in his system.
Ms Richardson said that Bryan, who celebrated his 35th birthday just two days before the fatal crash, would have been impaired by the drugs in his system and from being hungover and tired from the alcohol and festivities the night before.
‘Incredibly sad case’
Ms Richardson said that forensic analysis of Mr Bryan’s phone showed that at the time of the collision he had his Facebook and Instagram apps open.
He was on the way to drop some groceries off at his parents’ house. They were isolating during the covid lockdown when the accident occurred at about 1.40pm on May 10, 2020.
Mr Jackson was wearing a helmet on a straight stretch of road where visibility was good. Ms Richardson said:
“The front of the Porsche collided with the rear of Mr Jackson’s bike and Andrew Jackson came off his bike, went up in the air and hit his head on the windscreen and roof of the car, and landed on the road behind the car.”
“He was pronounced dead at the scene by an off-duty intensive-care consultant.
“This is an incredibly sad case. A young mother has lost her husband and father to two (very young) children. Her in-laws have lost their only son.”
Mr Bryan, of St Mary’s Avenue, Harrogate, has already admitted that he caused the death of Mr Jackson by careless driving in that he didn’t leave enough room to drive around the bicycle, but he denies causing death by dangerous driving on the grounds that he wasn’t using his phone at the time.
Head injuries
The prosecution insists that Mr Bryan’s driving was dangerous because he “wasn’t looking at the road ahead of him” as his car approached Mr Jackson. Ms Richardson said:
“If he had been (looking ahead of him) he would have had an uninterrupted view of the road (for) over 500 metres.”
Mr Bryan, who had been at a barbecue the night before to celebrate his birthday and set off for home early the following morning, called 999 moments after the accident and told a call operator he thought the cyclist was dead.
Other motorists, including the off-duty doctor and his medically trained wife, were on the scene in minutes and called police and an ambulance, but Mr Jackson had already died from head injuries.
Police arrived at the scene and arrested Mr Bryan, who was “very distressed” and appeared to be in shock.
A roadside drug-impairment test showed that Mr Bryan was positive for cocaine but not over the specified legal limit.
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Subsequent forensic examination of his phone showed that it was unlocked in the moments before the crash and the Instagram and Facebook apps were open.
Mr Bryan was taken in for questioning and told police that after arriving back home from Cheshire he decided to do some shopping for his parents who were shielding because his father had cancer.
He said that Mr Jackson, who lived locally, “came out of nowhere” but then claimed the cyclist had veered into the middle of the road and that he had tried to overtake him, only for the cyclist to “swerve into my path”.
An accident investigator who carried out a reconstruction of the crash said that the bike was not in the middle of the road, but on the edge of the carriageway, near a grass verge, and that Mr Bryan had not tried to move around the bicycle.
Mr Bryan told police he had gone to Cheshire the day before to view a “potential development site” and that he wanted to become a property developer.
In one message found on his phone on the way back from Cheshire, Mr Bryan told a friend he was hungover from the night before and was “concerned about being late for his parents with their shopping”.
In another sent by Mr Bryan to a female friend while he was at the birthday party, he told her: “I’m so drunk I can’t see.”
‘Fit to drive’
Defence barrister Sophia Dower claimed that Mr Bryan was in a “fit and proper state” to drive and was not using his phone at the time of the crash.
She claimed that Mr Jackson’s bike had veered right from the edge of the road into the path of Mr Bryan’s black Porsche, and that her client “didn’t have enough time to react”.
Witnesses including the off-duty doctor and his wife said they saw the cyclist with torn clothes lying on his back in the road.
The doctor said that when he checked for a pulse there was none, and he certified him dead at the scene.
He said that when he told the Porsche driver the cyclist was dead, he “moved backwards, crouched down and put his hands on his head”.
He said Mr Jackson had suffered a serious head injury and his helmet was broken.
The trial continues.
