A road rage driver who went viral after a video of him shouting abuse at a woman after she beeped him to cut over is facing jail.
Peter Abbott got out of his car and approached terrified Samantha Isaacs’ vehicle after the small incident which happened outside a Tesco petrol station in Bournemouth, Dorset, just before lunchtime on August 25 last year.
Mrs Isaacs, who runs a TV production company and has worked with Prince William and Alan Titchmarsh, locked her doors and began filming an angry Abbott.
The 60-year-old man, from Bournemouth, hit her windscreen with his fists before shouting abuse.
He yelled at her, “Can you see me, can you see me?” He then called her ‘s**’ and ‘w***’ and put his head on the windscreen.
Another motorist went to intervene and called Abbott a bully. The Good Samaritan told him, “What’s wrong with you, you’re a woman in your own right,” to which Abbott replied, “She’s a very troublesome 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 “It’s not against the law to be angry” but was found guilty of the crime.
Sentencing was postponed due to the reports but a district judge warned Abbott he could face jail as it was the “most serious” offense of this type.
Mrs Isaacs, who is in her fifties, later said: “He is a terrible man and a bully. I didn’t want it to go this far, I didn’t want him to do this to anyone else.”
She told how Abbott pulled away from the mother of three and honked her horn, prompting Abbott to make obscene gestures at her before stopping his Toyota car and getting out.
“He was banging on the windscreen and my door with both his fists,” she told the court. I was scared so I started making a video of it.
“I didn’t think he was going to hit me or anything, but it was escalating and I wanted to get it on camera. I thought I’d be okay after all this time, but it’s still not great to see [the video],
Mrs Isaacs said she felt “unsafe” and had to lock her doors and check using her dashcam after the incident.
The court heard that Abbott was identified as the registered keeper of the Toyota involved in road rage and was interviewed by police in October.
He claimed that he was actually the victim of road rage because Mrs. Isaacs had honked her horn several times, flashed her lights at him and made obscene gestures.
He told the court: “The crux of this incident was the behavior of the witness. Despite what he has said under oath in this court, he honked not just once, but honked multiple times and flashed his lights, which I consider to be road rage.
“Right or wrong, I’m the type of person if someone treats me that way I’d like to say something, I’ll let them know. I would do it with anyone, no matter what gender, size or age they are.
“I don’t like people filming other people without their permission, I think it’s a violation of their privacy.”
He added: “Anger is not a rational act. I regret my behavior but I object to many such statements.”
Judge Orla Austin said she found Mrs. Isaacs an “entirely credible witness” and found Abbott guilty.
She said: “It is absolutely clear to me from the footage that he was banging her car. The level of anger was very high.
“I don’t believe you, I think you did all those things and were being completely threatening. The anger was out of proportion to the incident.
“Your intention was to harass, upset and harass her. She was alone, you repeatedly targeted her, this was constant abuse and it had a significant impact on her.