Daily Mail - 03.03.2020

Daily Mail, Tuesday, March 3, 2020^ Page 31

up to 10mph above the 20mph

speed limit in Dalston, east Lon-

don. The court heard he had slowed

down before colliding with Miss

Cihan as she crossed Kingsland

Road on August 28, 2018.

Jurors were shown CCTV of Mr

Hanlon riding the bike moments

before the crash as Miss Cihan

tried to cross the road – despite

the lights being green.

Mr Hanlon’s barrister Claire

Howell said road users are ‘enti-

tled to assume pedestrians will

follow right of way’ and so his per-

ception response time may have

been ‘longer than two seconds’

when Miss Cihan stepped out.

She also said Mr Hanlon thought

his bicycle qualified as an e-bike

rather than a motorcycle, explain-

ing why he did not have a licence.

Mr Hanlon told police he braked

when he saw the victim in the line

of his speeding bike, but didn’t

have time to stop. Expert witness

Paul Summerton confirmed that

thing he saw was ‘arms and legs

everywhere, flying in the air’.

Joshua Stubbs, who was outside

a nearby cafe with his three-year-

old daughter, saw Mr Hanlon col-

lide with the pedestrian’s head

before they both fell to the ground.

He said Mr Hanlon ‘looked dazed

and confused,’ and that ‘the lady

lay motionless on the road’.

Mr Hanlon then left the scene

but turned himself in after an

appeal by the Metropolitan Police.

He told officers: ‘She [Miss Cihan]

rushed out in front of me to cross

and she didn’t even look at me,

she didn’t look left or right... basi-

cally I could do nothing.’

The prosecution claimed Mr

Hanlon’s speed amounted to driv-

ing without due care and attention.

In a statement, Mr Hanlon

accepted he did not have the rele-

vant licence or insurance, but said

the way he was driving was not

the cause of Miss Cihan’s death.

Jodie: Just when I was

relaxed being single,

along came love

AS psychopath Villanelle in Killing Eve,

her unwitting love interests tend to

meet a brutal demise.

But Jodie Comer has revealed she’s

‘very much’ in love and ‘going with the

flow’ with her off-screen partner.

The Liverpudlian actress, 26, who last

year claimed to have ‘zero’ love life,

remained coy about the identity of her

new partner, but said the relationship

happened naturally when she was feel-

ing ‘relaxed’ as a singleton.

‘I think love’s the best,’ she told British

Vogue. ‘I’d been single for a while and

just kind of going with the flow and

doing my thing. That’s the thing, isn’t it?

When you’re relaxed and letting the

universe do what it’s doing, things kind

of fall into place.’

Miss Comer previously opened up in

an interview with the Telegraph in 2018,

saying: ‘My friends are in Liverpool, I

have a boyfriend in Liverpool. He isn’t in

the industry so this is an interesting job

for him to understand.’

The couple are believed to have split

in March last year, with Miss Comer jok-

ing that her murderous Killing Eve alter

ego can scare men off.

By Emma Powell

Showbusiness Correspondent

E-bike rider cleared

of killing pedestrian

He’s not guilty of careless driving despite hitting 30mph

An electric bicycle rider has

been cleared of killing a

woman by careless driving

in the first case of its kind.

Bricklayer Thomas Hanlon,

32, was said to have been trav-

elling at up to 30mph before he

ploughed into Sakine Cihan,

56, before leaving the scene

without checking on her.

She was left bleeding with multi-

ple fractures and was rushed to

hospital by ambulance but died of

a brain injury the following day.

It is believed to be the first death

of a pedestrian after a collision

with an e-bike in the UK.

By law, bicycles with an electric

motor can only be driven without

a licence or insurance if their

power is limited, and the motor

automatically switches off at

speeds above 15.5mph.

But the court heard Mr Hanlon’s

bike was capable of travelling at

double that speed – so it was

classed as a motorcycle, and a

rider would need a licence.

Mr Hanlon, of Hackney, east

London, was charged with caus-

ing death by careless driving and

driving while uninsured and unli-

censed. But an Old Bailey jury

deliberated for over an hour yes-

terday to find him not guilty of all

charges – including an alternative

charge of careless driving.

Mr Hanlon was riding a modified

£850 red ‘Hardrock’ mountain bike,

which had been fitted with a high-

powered motor, and was travelling

‘Arms and legs

everywhere’

By Inderdeep Bains

Collision: Thomas Hanlon Brain injury: Sakine Cihan when Mr Hanlon approached the

crossing he was doing between 27

to 32mph – at least 7mph above

the speed limit – but had slowed

to between 20 and 23mph by the

time of the crash.

Another cyclist, Raymond Mur-

phy, said he was overtaken by the

speeding bike swerving and cut-

ting through traffic and the next