A road rage driver who was filmed abusing a female driver after beeping at her for cutting her off is facing a possible prison sentence.
After the minor incident outside the Tesco petrol station, Peter Abbott got out of his car and approached Samantha Isaacs’ vehicle.
A horrified Miss Isaacs, who runs a TV production company and has worked with the Prince of Wales and Alan Titchmarsh, locked her doors and began filming Abbott.
The 60-year-old man hit his windshield with his fists before launching into an abusive tirade.
I asked her “can you see me you fucking slut?” yell. He then called her a “slut” and a “whore” and pressed her head against the windshield.
A male driver intervened and said Abbott was a bully. The driver said to Abbott, “What’s your problem, she’s a woman on her own,” to which Abbott replied, “She’s a fucking annoying woman.”
The footage was shown at Poole magistrates’ court in Dorset; where Abbott was prosecuted for using threatening words or behavior likely to cause alarm, distress or fear of violence.
He denied the crime, saying “being angry is not against the law”, but was found guilty by the court.
Sentencing was delayed due to the reports, but a district judge warned Abbott that he could go to prison because it was the “most serious” of such offences.
Ms Isaacs, then in her late 50s, said: “He is a terrible man and a bully. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far, I just don’t want him to do this to other people.”
The road rage incident took place on August 25 last year when Miss Isaacs left the Tesco Extra petrol station in Bournemouth, Dorset, just before lunchtime and Abbott, who was shopping in the main store, stopped in front of her.
The mother-of-three told the court: “I had just gone out and a car pulled out of the shopping area and I had to brake so hard that all my belongings fell from the passenger seat to the floor.
“I honked the horn as if to say, ‘Watch out.’ He turned around in the car and started gesticulating, then he got out of the car and started yelling at me.
“He said what did I think I was doing and started hitting my car and called me a lot of names like a fucking slag and a whore.
“He was banging both his fists on my windshield and door. I got scared and started recording it on video.
“I wanted to show him that I recorded everything to stop him. I locked my doors and didn’t get out of my car.
“I didn’t think he was going to kill me or anything, but the situation was escalating and I wanted to capture it on camera. I felt insecure.
“I thought I would be okay even though it was so long ago, but it’s still not very pleasant to watch. [the video].
“He went onto the road and stopped the car again. When we turned left at the traffic lights, he stopped the car again. I passed him and then I realized how stupid that was because I realized that meant he was following me. That’s when I called the police.”
District judge Orla Austin asked Ms Isaacs what the long-term impact of this was. He said: “Whenever I’m in the car alone I always keep the doors locked, I’ve made sure my dashcam is working.
“I work in television, mainly in London, and my daughter has had to take on most of my work as I don’t want to drive.
“Everyone seems so aggressive on the roads these days, I don’t want to be in that situation again.”
The court heard that Abbott was identified as the registered owner of the vehicle involved and was interviewed by police in October.
He told the court: “The origin of this incident was the behavior of the witness. Despite what he said when he was sworn in this court, he didn’t just honk his horn once, he honked his horn several times and turned on his lights, which I see as road rage.
“I believed there was enough room, so I went out. I looked at him in my rearview mirror and he was flashing his headlights, honking his horn, and making a rude gesture at me.
“Right or wrong, I am such a person that if someone treated me like this, I would want to say something, I would call out to him. I will do this with anyone, regardless of gender, height or age.
“I don’t like it when people film other people without their permission, I think it’s an invasion of their privacy.
‘That was a provocative laugh’
“The reason why the incident is not limited to this is that I did not see any problems. When I asked him to stop I saw him laughing at me and filming me. It wasn’t a nervous laugh, it was a provocative laugh.
“Anger is not a rational function. “I regret my behavior, but there are some statements I object to.”
Prosecutor Shami Duggal said: “You were recorded on record being extremely verbally abusive, threatening and intimidating.
“That wasn’t reasonable behavior, was it?”
Abbott replied: “No, I would agree with that, but not without reason. It’s not against the law to be angry.”
Judge Orla Austin said she found Ms Isaacs a “completely credible witness” and found Mr Abbott guilty.
He said: “It is clear from the footage that he crashed into her car. The anger level was extremely high.
“I don’t believe you, I see you doing all this and completely threatening. The anger was disproportionate to the incident.
“Your intention was to harass, alarm and distress him. “He was on his own, you were targeting him repeatedly, it was constant harassment and it had a significant impact on him.”
He warned Abbott, of Bournemouth, that he faced a prison sentence because the incident was the “most serious” of such crimes and because he prosecuted the victim despite “overwhelming evidence”.
Sentencing was postponed until later this month for Abbott to be evaluated.