A road rage driver filmed screaming abuse at a fellow motorist appeared a lot more subdued after he was told he could face prison.
Peter Abbott, 60, was a lot less slavering when he emerged from Poole Magistrates Court where he faced trial for his tirade against Samantha Isaacs.
He jumped out of his car after a minor incident outside a Tesco petrol station in Bournemouth last August and started his foul-mouthed rant.
He hit her windscreen and shouted ‘can you f**king see me you f**king tart?’ and called her a slag and a whore.
Another motorist who intervened to help the woman told Abbott he was a bully, but he continued his rant calling her a ‘bloody annoying woman’.
At a trial he tried to argue that it’s ‘not against the law to be angry’, but magistrates found him guilty of using threatening words or behaviour to cause alarm, distress or fear of violence.
His victim, Mrs Isaacs, 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.’
She described what happened: ‘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 round 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**king slag and whore. He was banging with both his fists on the windscreen and my door. I was frightened so I started videoing it.
‘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).’
Speaking about the long-term impact on her, she said: ‘Whenever I am in the car on my own I always keep the doors locked, I have made sure my dashcam works.’
The court heard Abbott was identified as the registered keeper of the Toyota involved in the road rage and was interviewed by police in October.
He claimed he was in fact the victim of road rage as Mrs Isaacs had sounded her horn several times, flashed her lights at him and made a rude gesture.
He told the court: ‘The origin of this incident was the behaviour of the witness. Despite what she has said on oath in this court, she didn’t just sound her horn once, she sounded it several times and flashed her lights, which I deem road rage.
‘I believed there was enough space so I pulled out. I looked at her in my rear view mirror, she was flashing her lights and sounding her horn and making a rude gesture at me.
‘I do not like people filming other people without their permission, I think it’s a violation of their privacy. The reason why the incident didn’t just stop there is that I didn’t see any distress whatsoever, what I saw was her laughing at me and filming me after I asked her to stop.
‘It was not a nervous laugh, it was a goading laugh. I regret my behaviour but there’s a number of statements I contest.’
Judge Orla Austin said she found Mrs Isaacs an ‘entirely credible witness’ and found Abbott guilty.
She said: ‘It is very clear to me from the footage that he was banging on her car. The level of anger was extremely high. I don’t believe you, I find you did all those things and were entirely threatening. The anger was out of all proportion to the incident.’
She warned Abbott, of Bournemouth, that he faces imprisonment as the incident was the ‘most serious’ of this type of offence.
Sentencing was adjourned until later this month for probation to assess Abbott. (Metro)