Charlie Alliston had been riding fixed-gear track bicycle with no front brake, which is not legal on road without modification

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A “dangerous” cyclist knocked down and killed a pedestrian on a busy London street and then blamed his victim, saying people have “zero respect”, a court heard.



Charlie Alliston, then aged 18, was said to be going nearly 20mph when he mowed down Kim Briggs as she crossed Old Street, east London, on 12 February last year. The 44-year-old mother of two was on her lunch break when the crash happened.

Alliston was riding a “fixie”, a fixed-gear track bicycle with no front brake, which is not legal on the road without modification.

He allegedly shouted at Briggs to “get out of the way” twice before their heads smashed together. Briggs suffered brain injuries including two skull fractures and died a week later.

After seeing a newspaper report about the incident, Alliston posted a comment online claiming he tried to warn her but she had “ignored” him and “stopped dead” in his path.

He wrote: “I feel bad due to the seriousness of her injuries but I can put my hand up and say this is not my fault.”

On an internet forum, he described how their heads collided and hers “ricocheted” into his. He wrote: “It is a pretty serious incident so I won’t bother saying she deserved it. It was her fault but she did not deserve it.”

He went on to claim Briggs had been on her mobile phone. He complained: “Everyone is quick to judge and help the so-called victim but not the other person in the situation.

“It all happened so fast and even at a slow speed there was nothing I could do. I just wish people would stop making judgments. People either think they are invincible or have zero respect for cyclists.”

Jurors at the Old Bailey trial were shown CCTV footage of the collision, as Briggs’s widower, Matthew, looked on.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Briggs died a week after the incident. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PA

The defendant had been riding a black Planet X carbon-frame fixed-gear cycle, a type more commonly seen racing at the Olympic velodrome, jurors were told. Such bikes used by the likes of Sir Chris Hoy and Laura Trott can only legally be taken on to the streets if fitted with a front brake, jurors heard.

If Alliston’s bike had proper brakes he would have been able to avoid the collision with the HR consultant, the prosecutor Duncan Penny QC said.

Alliston, now 20, of Bermondsey in south London, has denied a charged under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act of causing bodily harm to Briggs by wanton or furious driving. In a legal first, he also faces an additional charge of the manslaughter of Briggs, from Lewisham in south London.

Penny told jurors Alliston had bought the bicycle for £470 to use on a track in January 2016, but in reality only used it on the road.

Alliston told police he had been riding a fixed-gear bike since 2014, having removed the front brake from a previous model.

In 2015, he tweeted: “The time when you first take your brakes off and feeling like you’re in a lucasbrunelle movie,” in apparent reference to an American bike stunt film-maker.

Penny told jurors: “The crown suggests that what the defendant was doing – riding a fixed-wheel bicycle without a front brake through a busy area of central London at nearly 20mph at lunchtime when hazards, such as pedestrians stepping out into the road, might well be expected to occur in front of him requiring him to react – was dangerous.

“What he was doing was such that all sober and reasonable people, knowing the circumstances as he knew them to be, would inevitably recognise it subjected other people to the risk of some harm resulting therefrom.”

The trial continues.