A moped rider who filmed himself brutally kicking cyclists off their bikes in south London has been jailed for 18 months.
Davontay Higgins, 21, the father of a two-year-old child, admitted attacking two riders in separate incidents, at least one of which he posted on social media.
In the first incident, the cyclist’s helmet-cam showed Higgins, who was wearing a balaclava under his helmet in a bid to conceal his identity, approaching from behind and lashing out with his left foot, sending the 57-year-old male victim crashing into a parked car.
In the other attack, another cyclist, who was riding home at night, went flying over the handlebars of his bike at about 15mph and into the rear windscreen of a parked car.
He suffered ongoing head, shoulder ligament and back injuries and was badly shocked, requiring hospital treatment.
The first cyclist suffered bruises, bleeding and grazes and required an ambulance, with his injuries taking months to heal.
The cyclist had been followed by Higgins after the rider remonstrated with him for riding towards him on the wrong side of the road.
Judge Georgia Kent told Higgins at Kingston Crown Court on Wednesday afternoon: “These offences taken together are so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.”
She said he had “targeted two vulnerable road users and intentionally caused them injuries”, adding: “You deliberately used your moped and foot combined together as weapons to kick them off their bikes into the road.”
The first victim, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Standard afterwards: “In the end, justice has been done.”
Police had launched a search for Higgins, naming him in an online post on social media, following the attacks on August 27 and October 21 last year.
The attacks happened in Summerstown, Tooting, and in Longfield Street, Southfields.
Higgins, who was said by his defence barrister to have “mental health issues”, broke down in tears ahead of the hearing, fearing that he would be sent to prison.
The court heard he had a conviction for robbery dating from 2020.
He was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing, at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court in June, to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two of dangerous driving.
Higgins received nine months’ prison for the first attack and first case of dangerous driving, and nine months for the second attack and second case of dangerous driving, with the sentences to run one after the other – a total of 18 months.
However, Judge Kent said Higgins would serve up to half of the sentence in jail and the remainder under licence.
He was disqualified from driving for two years and nine months.
The case only came to court after the first cyclist appealed to the Crown Prosecution Service against its initial decision not to bring a prosecution due to an apparent lack of evidence.
This was despite the presence of two videos – including one posted by Higgins on Snapchat that went viral on X – and the fact that two mopeds were found near his home address.
The first cyclist, who used the victims’ right to review procedure, later received a written apology from the CPS prosecutor for South London, Frances McCormack.
CCTV showed that, prior to the Tooting attack, Higgins had followed the cyclist for about 10 to 15 minutes, during which the cyclist apologised in a bid to placate Higgins and rode on the pavement in a bid to get away from him.
Higgins stopped to cover his number plate before launching the attack.
Judge Kent told Higgins: “You engaged in a prolonged, persistent and deliberate course of dangerous driving.
“Your driving was obviously highly dangerous and you made prolonged use of a mobile phone.
“You failed to stop when it must have been obvious to you that you had caused [the cyclist] injuries.”
The judge said Higgins caused “gratuitous degradation” of his second victim.
She told him: “You had your mobile phone out and you were recording him before you kicked him.
“You must have done so with the deliberate intention of recording your serious assault on him and you then posted it online in order to gain attention for the serious offending that you had engaged in.”
Defence barrister Tim Banks told the court that Higgins wanted to apologise to his two victims and had broken down crying on Wednesday morning, fearing he would be sent to prison.
Mr Banks said: “The [video] recordings clearly indicate serious offending, the defendant putting others in a dangerous position.
“The defendant is still a young man. When I met him [on Wednesday morning] he was in tears and upset for a number of reasons. The obvious one was that he was very concerned about losing his liberty.
“There is regret and remorse for what he did. The defendant is someone with aspects to his personality, his mental health, which in some way explain, and perhaps to a lesser extent, excuse his actions.
“The [pre-sentence] report talks about a sombre and remorseful young man who was in a special needs school as an adolescent. He has struggled in some ways with cannabis usage.”
Mr Banks said Higgins had a “difficult upbringing” with “no father on the scene” and a mother who was paralysed in a road crash when he was 12 and who now uses a wheelchair.
He was said to be “vulnerable” and showed a “lack of maturity” and had “mental health issues”.
Higgins had recently begun working as a cleaner and waiter in his mother’s Caribbean restaurant.
“He is not proud of what he did and he is ashamed,” Mr Banks told the court. “He has struggled with his mental health. There is a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”
However Higgins, who lives with his girlfriend and her mother, had stopped taking medication for ADHD because of the side effects.
A friend of Higgins had been killed in a shooting about seven weeks before the attack on the first cyclist, Mr Banks said.
“The defendant would benefit greatly from a rehabilitation activity. I accept he needs to be punished for this.
“He is desperate to lead a decent life.”
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