A convicted road rage driver who was filmed screaming abuse at a woman motorist after she sounded her horn at him for cutting her up has been warned he faces jail.
Peter Abbott got out of his car and approached the frightened Samantha Isaacs’ vehicle following the minor incident outside a Tesco petrol station.
A terrified Mrs Isaacs, who runs a TV production company and has worked with Prince William and Alan Titchmarsh, locked her doors and began filming irate Abbott.
The 60-year-old banged on her windscreen with his fists before unleashing the foul-mouthed tirade.
He shouted at her, ‘Can you f***ing see me, you f***ing tart?’ He then called her a ‘s**g’ and a ‘wh***’ and put his head up against the windscreen.
A male motorist went to intervene and called Abbott a bully. The Good Samaritan told him, ‘What is wrong with you, it’s a woman on her own’ to which Abbott replied, ‘She’s a f***ing bloody annoying woman’.
At the Poole Magistrates’ Court in Dorset, where Abbott was on trial for using threatening words or actions to incite fear of violence, anxiety, or alarm, the video was played.
He denied the offence, saying ‘it’s not against the law to be angry’ but was found guilty of the offence.
Sentencing was adjourned for reports but a district judge warned Abbott that he may go to jail as it was the ‘most serious’ of this type of offence.
Afterwards, Mrs Isaacs, who is aged in her late 50s, said: ‘He’s a horrible man and a bully. I didn’t want it to go this far, I just don’t want him to do it to anyone else.’
The road rage incident happened on August 25 last year when Mrs Isaacs was leaving the petrol station at Tesco Extra in Bournemouth, Dorset, just before lunchtime.
Abbott, who had been shopping in the main store, pulled out in front of her, causing her to slam on her brakes.
The mother of three honked her horn, prompting Abbott to make rude gestures at her before stopping his Toyota car and getting out.
Mrs Isaacs told the court: ‘I had just pulled out and a car came out of the shopping area and completely cut me up to the point where I had to slam on my brakes so hard all my belongings came off the passenger seat onto the floor.
‘I beeped my horn as if to say “look out” type of thing. He turned around in the car and started gesticulating, then he got out of the car and started shouting at me.
‘He said what did I think I was doing and started hitting my car and calling me a lot of names like f***ing s**g and wh***.
‘He was banging with both his fists on the windscreen and my door. I was frightened so I started videoing it.
‘I wanted to show him I was recording everything to make him stop. I had locked my doors; I wasn’t getting out of my car.
‘I didn’t think he was going to kill me or anything but this was escalating and I wanted to have it on camera. I felt unsafe.
‘I would have thought after it being such a long time ago I would be okay, but it’s still not very nice to watch [the video].
‘He drove out into the road and stopped the car again. When we turned left at the traffic lights, he stopped the car again. I overtook him and then realised how stupid it was because I realised that meant he was following me. That’s when I phoned the police.’
District judge Orla Austin asked Mrs Isaacs what the long-term impact had been. She said: ‘Whenever I am in the car on my own I always keep the doors locked, I have made sure my dashcam works.
‘I work in television, predominantly in London, and my daughter has had to take on more of my work because I don’t want to drive.
‘Everyone seems to be so aggressive on the roads these days, I don’t want to be put in this position again.’
The court heard that Abbott was questioned by police in October after being recognised as the registered owner of the Toyota implicated in the outburst.
This man has shown no remorse, and still believes that his behaviour was justified; he deserves a jail sentence, even if it is for a short time, but he probably won’t get jailed for his offence, he will either get a suspended sentence or community service.
This man is just a bully, and while being angry isn’t unlawful, using anger to vent on a middle-aged woman is unlawful. He deserves everything he gets, including the notoriety that will follow him for the rest of his life.
This guy obviously likes to target female drivers because he probably wouldn’t confront a male driver in the same way, and he needs to be punished appropriately, not just to be sat on the naughty step, sucking his thumb because he’s an arrogant bully with a bad attitude.
God knows what he would have done if the woman hadn’t locked herself in her car; therefore, we should never minimise what he did!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 