Police suspect cyberman biker of hyperspace speeding

Police suspected a cyberman from Doctor Who of causing a road accident through speeding on his motorcycle, and threatened to prosecute him. The charge was dropped once it was pointed out that, for the accident to have happened as alleged, he would have been travelling at over 250mph.

Matthew Doman, 27, is an actor who plays a cyberman in the cult BBC TV series. In November last year he was involved in an accident when a car turned across his path on the road between Cowbridge and Pontyclun in Mid Glamorgan.

He sustained brain and orthopaedic injuries as a result of the accident.
The car driver involved claimed that the road had been clear when he began his turn, and so police decided to charge Matthew with driving without due care and attention.

They offered him the option of taking a driver�s improvement course. But to accept would have been tantamount to an admission of guilt, so instead Matthew decided to fight the case.

His lawyers called in an expert to examine the circumstances of the accident. The expert pointed out that, for the road to have been clear for 315 metres in the direction from which Matthew was travelling, as was alleged, to have appeared so suddenly he would have been travelling at over 250 mph.

On receipt of the report the police dropped all charges.

Matthew Doman�s lawyer is Rob Thomas, a partner with Cardiff-based NewLaw and one of the firm�s specialists in motorcycle and brain injury claims.

�Fortunately Matthew had the strength of character to refuse to accept the offer of the drivers improvement course and decided instead to plead not guilty,� Rob Thomas says.

�The accident reconstruction report showed that the absolute maximum speed Matthew could have been travelling at was 39mph, and he would have been at most about 50 metres away from the junction as the car driver began his turn.

�That compares with over 300 metres distance and over 250 mph which must have been the case had the driver�s account been correct. Yet the police had accepted it.
�Matthew would not have been able to avoid the accident even if he had been going much more slowly.

�But it seems the police decided to prosecute Matthew as they preferred to accept the word of the motorist. It also seems they assumed that, because his Triumph Daytona broke into three pieces on impact, this was evidence of excessive speed.

�Yet the bike is actually built to break up on impact, in a similar way that crumple zones on a car act to absorb the energy of an accident.

�It really does seem that the police took the driver�s evidence on face value and didn�t really consider whether it was realistic when they decided on the prosecution.

�On the face of it there is a case for prosecution against the car driver, since it was he who crossed the road in front of Matthew when it was unsafe to do so. But instead they decided to throw the book at the biker.�