When this driver deliberately swerved head-on at cyclists in separate incidents he thought he’d get away with it. But one of them caught him on headcam and now he’s in jail.
A motorist has been sentenced to 2½ years in prison after deliberately swerving into cyclists at speed in an apparent bid to scare them or run them off the road.
The criminal charges were brought after one of three riders who claimed to have fallen victim to the driver captured the incident on a helmet camera.
The clip that proved so important to tracing motorist Dean Goble (40) of Siddington in Gloucestershire was recorded by cyclist David Jones.
Mr Jones was out for a ride in the Ashton Keynes area of Wiltshire in April 2014 when a Peugeot 206 swerved towards him.
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The car was driving in the opposite direction and was swerved by Goble across the white line, passing very close to Mr Jones.
The registration plate of Goble’s car was visible in the clip and he was tracked down. Two other cyclists made identical complaints relating to incidents within a 10-day period.
And while Goble’s said he was swerving to avoid potholes and at one stage even blamed his brother, for two of the three incidents, he was found guilty at Swindon Crown Court on Wednesday of two counts of dangerous driving.
He kept his hand on the horn of his car and was driving at around 50mph, with the cyclists saying in their evidence they thought they were going to die.
Gobles was accused during the trial of “lying through his teeth” after claiming he was in "full control of the car."
"I was in full control of the car. I do not agree it was dangerous, slightly careless,” he told court after the footage recorded by Mr Jones was shown to the jury.
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"I can remember swerving towards a cyclist to miss the pothole. I have got no reason... I am a cyclist myself,” he added in remarks reported by the Western Daily Press.
"It was my brother. He had the car for about a month," he said.
"I can't remember the exact date but he kept hassling me so I let him borrow it. He admitted it to me yesterday.
"But my brother has been in bother and I spoke to him on the phone yesterday and I said I could get two or three years and he said it's not fair and he said 'Tell them it was me'.
"I just didn't want to get my brother into bother. It's not a lie.
"I am an experienced driver and have been driving for 22 years and I know when to swerve or to stop," he added.
"When you are driving along a road where the potholes have been fixed many, many times – I have got pictures to prove how bad it was.
"It was very, very bad and it's got repaired, you presume... the whole road had potholes on it."
Daily Mail's clip of one of the incidents
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