And does the jury, who do not carry out sentencing, know better than others as to whether having jail sentencing here is beneficial for society?
But as you point out, the jury isn't responsible for sentencing so I'm struggling to understand why their view on sentencing is relevant.
The jury's role is to determine whether the individual is guilty or not guilty of the offence the person is charged with, and in doing that they will take account of both the evidence during the trial but also any specific direction from the judge. And in this case the judge was clear (although there appeared to be some confusion) that the pavement was a shared space and therefore presumably the jury considered their verdict on the basis that it was a shared space.
So in terms of both conviction and sentencing we are dealing with a situation where both the pedestrian and the cyclist had an equal right to use the pavement space and also, presumably, that each had a basic responsibility not to act in a manner that might cause harm to the other. It is pretty clear that the pedestrian deliberately acted in a manner that was likely to cause harm to the other and indeed by attempting to force her off the pavement and into the road act in a manner that resulted in her death.
I doubt the woman intended to cause the death of the cyclist, but she did, and that's why it is manslaughter not murder.
On sentencing I suspect a few other aspects would have played a part. Specifically that the woman failed to help, to render assistance after the event and indeed simply headed off on her way. Secondly that it appears that she was not truthful about what happened when questioned by the police and thirdly that apparently she expressed no remorse until she was convicted.
Looking at the video this is, in my opinion, a really shocking incident and give the clearly deliberate nature of the act on the part of the woman I have no issue with either the conviction nor the sentencing.
