Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
20
Aug
Man, 81, found guilty of causing the death of biker by careless driving near Boroughbridge
A pensioner has been found guilty of causing death by careless driving after a motorcyclist was killed on a main road near Boroughbridge.
William Beckett, 81, pulled out of a junction into the path of an oncoming motorbike on the B6265, York Crown Court heard.
The resulting collision caused the motorcyclist, Nicholas Gilroy, to be thrown from his bike, landing on a grass verge.
Mr Gilroy, who was an experienced rider, died from his injuries on July 29, 2023, two months after the crash in the village of Aldborough.
Beckett, who had been visiting friends in the village, was charged with causing death by careless driving following the accident on May 20, 2023.
He denied the allegation and appeared for trial at the Crown Court this week when a jury found him guilty as charged.
Responding to questions from prosecutor Paul Mitchell on the first day of the trial, an expert accident investigator said that when Beckett’s car pulled out onto the B6265 from its junction with Front Street, Mr Gilroy’s motorcycle would have been clearly visible.
He added:
(Mr Beckett’s) car went into the path of the motorbike after failing to give way at the junction.
Beckett, of Vernham Dean, Hampshire, was quizzed by police on the day of the accident and told officers he had set off from Aldborough at about 5.30pm on the journey back home.
He claimed that when he reached the junction with the B6265, he “stopped, looked right and then left, and right again”.
He claimed that “there was nothing coming” so he pulled out onto the main road.
He said he got “about halfway across the road and suddenly there was a terrific bang”.
He said he saw a motorcyclist “flying past the front of my car and landing with his bike on the grass verge”.
He said he stopped his car, got out and went to see if the rider was okay, but he “didn’t appear to be moving”.
The pensioner, who was a regular visitor to Aldborough, claimed he didn’t see the motorbike which “came from my right from the direction of Boroughbridge”.
The court heard that it was broad daylight, sunny, with “no visibility problems” at the time of the accident.
Detective Constable Stephanie Palmer, who led the investigation for North Yorkshire Police, said that in a second police interview in June 2024, Beckett claimed that due to trees on either side of the road and the sun shining, there was a “limited amount of time for me to see (the motorcyclist)” as he approached up the hill.
He claimed that he was looking left and right at the junction but was “paying particular attention to the left” where there was a “blind summit”.
Mr Gilroy had been approaching the junction from the opposite direction.
Yesterday (August 18), the second day of the trial, the jury found Beckett guilty of causing death by careless driving. He will be sentenced on October 2.
0