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Road rage shame of local cabbie





In it, Brendan Pryor could be heard screaming threats and obscenities after jumping from a moving car and kicking a dent in a passing Subaru Legacy driven by Stephanie Hurrell.
Clare Barclay, prosecuting, said the incident was triggered when Mr Pryor’s wife, who was driving, felt she had been “cut up by Ms Hurrell at the Burger King roundabout on the A339 in Newbury.”
The court heard that the car driven by the Pryors, of Lamtarra Way, Newbury, began flashing its headlights so Ms Hurrell pulled over in Racecourse Road to allow it to overtake.
Ms Barclay went on: “But, once in front, the car slowed and stopped in the middle of the road and, before it had stopped moving, Mr Pryor jumped out.
“He stood in the road and she decided to drive round him because he looked angry and she was very concerned. She drove past and, as she did so, Mr Pryor kicked her car, causing a dent to the front passenger side.”
Ms Hurrell and her boyfriend, identified only as Mr Moorcock, pulled over to inspect the damage, the court heard.
At that point, said Ms Barclay, Mr Pryor strode up, “angry and challenging” and Mr Moorcock filmed the ensuing altercation between his girlfriend and Mr Pryor on his camera phone.
Ms Barclay said Mr Pryor shoved Ms Hurrell when she asked for his insurance details and added: “He refused to give details and you can hear from the film their relative demeanours.”
In the footage that followed, Mr Pryor could be heard screaming at the top of his voice: “I’m telling you now, I’ll go straight for you. You’re taking numbers and I’m having none of it.”
Mr Moorcock can be heard replying in a soft voice: “Just calm down, we just need to talk about it.”
At a previous hearing Mr Pryor denied assaulting Ms Hurrell, causing criminal damage worth £492 and using threatening words or behaviour, all on December 17 last year.
But at Thursday’s hearing he admitted the single damage charge and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) withdrew the other matters.
Alan Walker, defending, said his client was a cab driver and had been under “considerable stress” due to £54,000 debts.
He added: “He has been laid off work with stress since this incident.”
Mr Pryor wept in the dock as his counsel observed: “To be a taxi driver you have to have an impeccable record - and Mr Pryor had that. The outcome might lose him his licence, he fears.
“He accepts that Ms Hurrell was confronted by a man she didn’t know in the road and didn’t know what was going to happen. He struck out on the spur of the moment.”
Mr Walker claimed Ms Hurrell had slammed on her brakes in front of his client’s wife.
Magistrates made Mr Pryor subject to a two-year conditional discharge.
They also ordered him to pay Ms Hurrell £492 compensation plus a statutory surcharge of £15.
The CPS had requested £700 towards the costs of the aborted trial but magistrates refused that because of Mr Pryor’s limited means.



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