Sheffield man shocked at road rage accusation after trying to help trapped driver

A medical sales rep from Sheffield said he was shocked to be accused of road rage after he tried to help a trapped driver following a dramatic motorway crash.
The smash happened on the M62The smash happened on the M62
The smash happened on the M62

Christopher Dye's own dashcam captured the collision on the M62 on the Yorkshire-Greater Manchester border on May 12 last year.

The footage shows Mr Dye's car spinning around in the carriageway before a blue Peugeot, flies past him on its roof.

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The 27-year-old is then seen to run up to the stricken car and try to help the trapped driver.

Mr Dye's solicitor, Nick Freeman, said his client was charged with driving without due consideration for other road users, which he said related to an alleged altercation with a van driver he said had caused the three-car crash on May 12 last year.

But Mr Freeman - who became known as Mr Loophole following his involvement with a range of celebrity driving cases - said the case against Mr Dye, who is from Sheffield, was dropped at a hearing before Bury Magistrates earlier this week.

The solicitor said the incident began when a tailgating van hit his client's car from behind.

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He said the charge arose because his alleged altercation with the van driver after the crash was deemed to be a road-rage type incident.

Mr Freeman said: "Mr Dye was not only a victim in this incident, he was also a hero and yet the police decided to pursue charges against him.

"In the video footage Mr Dye can clearly be heard telling the van driver to back off, as he was far too close.

"Despite the fact the van driver who clipped two cars was charged with careless driving, bizarrely my client was also charged.

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"Mr Dye was clearly angry with the appalling driving of the man who caused the accident and yet because the police believed that he had remonstrated with him, the police charged him with a road rage offence."

Mr Freeman said the prosecution wanted to use Mr Dye's footage as evidence against him but he successfully objected to it being produced in the case.

Mr Dye said: "It was shocking to be a victim of a car accident on the motorway, but then to be unfairly accused of road rage was even more upsetting."

A spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: "The CPS conducted a careful review of the evidence provided by the police in this case after the two defendants had been summonsed for driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.

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"All cases are subject to on-going review and the CPS conducted a further review of the footage of the incident today and concluded that in the absence of any supporting witness evidence there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction against the defendant and we therefore offered no evidence."

She said another defendant involved in the incident pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing, was fined £500 and disqualified from driving for six months.