AYDOGDU: ‘I MADE HUMAN ERROR,’ SAYS DEATH SMASH DRIVER
A driver accused of sending a cyclist crashing to his death under a bus with a car door admitted he made a ‘human error’ today (Thurs).
Kenan Aydogdu, 32, said he had not looked in his wing mirror to check for oncoming traffic before Sam Harding, 25, collided with his vehicle.
He claimed he had only opened his door ‘a crack’ in order to look over his shoulder for other road users.
Mr Harding was on his way to see his girlfriend when he was crushed under the wheels of the 153 in Holloway Road, north London, on August 6 last year.
Aydogdu is accused of causing the cyclist’s death by failing to check before flinging open the door of his parked Audi A8.
But, giving evidence at the Old Bailey through a Turkish interpreter, he insisted: ‘I am very sorry and very upset at what happened.
‘I didn’t check the mirror. It’s a human error.
‘I made a mistake and I’m just sorry for that. Why I didn’t check – it’s a human error.’
Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema asked: ‘Is the real truth that you didn’t care? You just took the chance it would be safe and OK?’
Aydogdu replied: ‘No, it was very important and I care. But it was a human error.
‘I made a mistake.’
Ms Cheema continued: ‘The human error you made was that you didn’t care.
‘You took the chance and hoped it would be OK.’
Aydogdu said: ‘It happened so suddenly, so quickly.’
Asked why he needed to open the door in order to look over his shoulder, he explained: ‘I do sports and I have difficulty turning my head so usually I want to open the door to check.’
He claimed Mr Harding had been cycling ‘very close’ to his vehicle and suggested the collision with the partially-open car door had flung it open.
‘He was very close to the door and I didn’t realise he was there,’ Aydogdu told the court.
He said he had applied the handbrake and turned off the music in the car and had nothing to distract him and that the tinted windows in the car had only restricted his visibility ‘a little’.
The court heard the windows on the Audi had just 17 per cent transparency.
Aydogdu, of Crossways Road, Grayshott, Hindhead, Surrey, denies manslaughter.
The trial continues.
