A ‘loving’ cyclist who was knocked off his bike by a taxi driver in the early hours died a fortnight after the crash.

Daniel O’Donnell, 28, claimed not to have seen 68-year-old Robert Mallinson before knocking him down at a Didcot crossroads on August 8, 2020.

Oxford Crown Court heard that O’Donnell was approaching Lydalls Road from Haydon Road shortly after midnight, making his way from Didcot railway station to pick up a fare.

Mr Mallinson, on his way home from seeing friends, was cycling the correct way down one-way Lydalls Road. His bike was fitted with front and rear lights and the two-wheeler had reflectors.

The Go Green Taxis liveried Toyota Prius slowed to 14mph as it approached the junction but appeared to speed up as it struck the bicycle side-on.

O’Donnell remained at the scene, with bystanders saying he had been ‘shaking like a leaf’.

His victim was taken to hospital. Despite the efforts of medics on the intensive care unit at the John Radcliffe, his condition worsened and he died on August 23.

In a victim personal statement read to Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Mallinson’s wife Janet said of her recently-retired husband: “He was a wonderful, loving, caring man. [O’Donnell] has taken away the love of my life, my soulmate, the man I wanted to grow old with.”

Mr Mallinson’s brother, John, described his older sibling as having been ‘needlessly killed’. The defendant had showed a ‘complete disregard’ for his brother’s ‘physical vulnerability on a bicycle’.

Sentencing him to 10 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Ian Pringle QC said O’Donnell ‘simply never saw’ Mr Mallinson.

“As a taxi driver and someone familiar with that road you should have been concentrating hard to your right, looking out not just for headlights but for any other road users,” he said.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/20095042.taxi-driver-killed-loving-cyclist-didcot-crash-gets-suspended-sentence/