Court sympathises in 'road rage' case
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• A policeman on plain clothes duty became a road rage victim after a long-distance lorry driver mistook him for an ordinary motorist during a confrontation. Christopher Walker, 29. of Purplett Street, Ipswich, jumped out of his 38-tonne artic at Smethwick, West Midlands, when an unmarked police car forced him to stop near a traffic island at Telford Way, Warley magistrates heard.
Robert Prosser, prosecuting, said that Walker grabbed PC Trevor Gains by his shirt and pushed him.
The police car stopped Walker's truck because it had been driven on the outside lane. But Trevor Bytheway, defending, said Walker thought he had been "cut up" by an ordinary motorist and became angry when he was forced to brake heavily, "This was a peculiar road rage incident because there was no indication the vehicle was a police car or that the driver was a policeman," said Bytheway. "As soon as the defendant realised he was dealing with a policeman he backed off."
Walker was given a conditional discharge for six months and ordered to pay .00 costs after admitting breaching a Public Order Act. One magistrate told him: "We have sympathy over what happened."