Her Honour Refuses Your Request: The Death of a Cyclist and What I Don't Understand

By Heath Ryan

The Office of ACT Chief Magistrate and Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker wrote to the author on 27 August 2021 saying "Her Honour refuses your request" for a new coronial inquest into the death of a cyclist near Canberra on the morning of 31 March 2017.

But justice was not served by her refusal, and so Her Honour Refuses Your R

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Knight Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780734622402

Heath Ryan

Heath Ryan is a publisher and writer, and holds a BA in Economics and History from the University of Toronto. Born in Canada, Heath lived in Jordan, France and the United Kingdom before moving to Australia. In addition to being a father, Heath is also an ultra-endurance cyclist. Riding as 'The Dark Knight', he was in twentieth position in the 2017 Indian Pacific Wheel Race from Fremantle to Sydney on the day Mike Hall was killed. Since then, Heath completed three transcontinental races in the 2018 calendar year, achieving what can be called the triple crown of unsupported ultra-endurance cycling. Heath's current focus is investigative books dealing with social justice, books that celebrate human achievement, and books and articles that observe and comment on behaviour and society.

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Prologue: Who will stand up for justice?

When justice is not shackled and is unrestrained, it never sleeps.

— Eric Bland, Legal Partner at Bland Richter, LLP

Lexington County, South Carolina, USA

When the name of the driver who fatally struck a cyclist at 6.18 am on 31 March 2017 near Canberra was withheld from the media for over a year, I feared an injustice was about to occur. Who was this driver? Was he the son or daughter of a powerful Canberra politician? Was he some otherwise privileged individual? In the end he was just a nobody like me driving an old car to an ordinary job. At the time I too drove an old car and I too didn’t have an impressive job or powerful connections.¹

The inquest started with the coroner² stating that the driver would not be charged with a criminal offence, even though she had not yet seen the driver’s blood alcohol or blood toxicology results. Next the cyclist was described by counsel assisting as not being visible enough, even though his bicycle’s lights met the required standard. And then, to add injury to insult, it was alleged by counsel assisting that the cyclist didn’t have retro-reflective surfaces on this clothing, while the AFP (the Australian Federal Police) had somehow lost or misplaced all of that clothing.

I distinctly remember watching the coroner, at one point, admonish the cyclist’s ex-girlfriend for shaking her head ‘no’ after an assertion she disagreed with was made. The coroner then told this ex-girlfriend to sit somewhere outside of the coroner’s line of vision if she, the ex-girlfriend, was going to continue to make non-verbal comment on what was happening at the inquest. And while I didn’t understand at the time what this was about in legal terms, it felt like everyone except the driver who actually killed the cyclist was being blamed for the cyclist’s death.

But then it got worse. When counsel assisting, the barrister presenting the Australian Federal Police’s case, played a police reconstruction video in court, there were audible gasps from many in the courtroom – including myself – because the cyclist’s bicycle was almost completely invisible in that video, whereas an actual video from the previous evening showed that the cyclist was very well lit and extremely visible. Then, when a Victorian barrister tried to question the AFP’s evidence pertaining to the roadworthiness of the driver’s headlights, she was told by the coroner that she could not question evidence presented by the AFP in the ACT Coroners Court.

After sitting through the first two full days of this three-day inquest, I felt I was watching a kind of miscarriage of justice unfold before my eyes. Then, on the third day, the driver was prevented from giving evidence by the coroner even though he had just been given an exemption from prosecution from her. How is that the best way to determine the truth? How did exempting the driver from testifying serve the interests of justice?

By the end of it all I instinctively felt justice had not been served, but I held out hope that the coroner’s findings could still deliver some justice. Alas, it was not to be (see Minimal 14). Perhaps I was naïve? Perhaps I was giving up too soon? So I spent from February 2019 to March 2021 gathering new evidence in the hope of seeing this miscarriage of justice corrected. That new evidence was lodged with the Office of the Coroner on 15 March 2021 together with a request for a new inquest. But, in a letter signed by Matthew Kamarul, Chief Magistrate Walker rejected my evidence and refused my request for a new inquest with five words, Her Honour refuses your request.

This was disappointing, and a setback in this quest for justice. Following this refusal, I was advised not to bother undertaking further legal action as an appeal to the ACT Supreme Court would cost over $100,000 and was likely to fail. Accepting that advice, I resolved instead to publish the entirety of my research, including details I had previously not released publicly. And while I don’t believe merely asking questions about judicial decisions amounts to contempt of court, I would argue that, like judges, members of the public have the ability to read legislation, the capacity to critically assess facts and scientific evidence, and sometimes even the courage to ask the difficult questions.

Please read the following 18 short minimals (a non-fiction writing form similar to the short story) and decide for yourself if justice was served in this case. Will justice continue to sleep in Canberra? Or will someone stand up for justice?

1Unlike me, he only had a provisional licence and he killed someone with his car.

2In Australia a coroner is a judge, not a medical examiner.

Minimal 1

What really happened

One day more

Another day

Another destiny

One More Day, from Les Misérables

A thirty-five-year-old cyclist was riding from Fremantle in Western Australia to Sydney in New South Wales (NSW) on 31 March 2017 in a solo, unsupported bicycle race event when he was struck from behind and killed by 19-year-old P-plate driver Mr Shegu Bobb just a few kilometres inside the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) border.

The driver was taken to hospital but never charged. The cyclist’s death was referred to the ACT coroner and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) were instructed to prepare a brief for the coroner.

The official version

At the coronial inquest held in the ACT Coroners Court in Canberra, Australia from 24 to 26 September 2018, Counsel Assisting the Coroner Mr Ken Archer presented the case as laid out in the Australian Federal Police’s brief for Coroner Bernadette Boss.¹ The AFP’s version of events can be summarised as follows:

According to the AFP, the cyclist:

was riding his bicycle north from Cooma, NSW towards Canberra in the ACT before sunrise on 31 March 2017.

although one of the most experienced in the world, was cycling in the dark with allegedly a woefully inadequate rear light, allegedly without a rear reflector, and allegedly without retroreflective clothing.

was allegedly not sufficiently visible to motorists who passed him, although his front and rear bicycle lights were working as required by law.

was allegedly swerving all over the road within three hours of resuming his travels despite a seven-hour rest stop in Cooma during which he refuelled and