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| Helena Ebrahimi Recorded Row On Phone |
A black taxi driver, who locked Channel 4 business correspondent Helia Ebrahimi in his cab and ran her over as she tried to film his id plate, has received a suspended prison sentence from a judge who described him as a “blustering bully.”
James Wilkinson, 57, received four months imprisonment, suspended for a year, and must complete 210 hours community service work.
He was also banned from driving for two years and must pay £1,000 compensation to Ms Ebrahimi.
Wilkinson rowed with the Iranian-born broadcaster, 39, about his cab’s heating and told her the police were already too busy: “Dealing with the likes of you,” on the same day as the Westminster terror attack.
Wilkinson, of Provender Mill, Belvedere Road, Faversham was unanimously found guilty of falsely imprisoning Ms Ebrahimi on March 22 and driving dangerously in Roger Street, Holborn.
Blackfriars Crown Court Judge David Richardson told the grandfather: “You had a trivial argument with Ms Ebrahimi because the heater in your taxi was not working.
“You said words to the effect of: ‘If you’re going to be like that you can get out’ and she asked to be let out of the taxi.
“Your reaction was to take her back to a side street and drop her off. You ignored her repeated requests to be let out.
“She asked over ten times to be let out of the cab and you ignored her.
“When she got out and stood in the v-shape of the door and cab filming your id plate you drove forward with the door open, causing her to fall to the floor.
“This caused an injury to her knee, to her leg and the flare-up of a condition to her back.
“She says you drove the cab backwards. She maybe is right, but I’m not sure she was right.
“You driving forward while she was in that obviously dangerous position caused her to fall, the danger was obvious.
“She could have been injured much more seriously than she was.
“You were a black cab driver, we trust our black cab drivers to keep their tempers and obey the law.
“You committed these offences against a woman in your cab on her own.
“You are a blustering bully and you would never have behaved like that if it was a man in your cab.
“You took the opportunity to bully someone standing up to you in your cab.
“You have shown an utter lack of remorse, suggesting the video evidence was somehow tampered with.”
The £1,000 compensation to Ms Ebrahimi was for falsely imprisoning her in the locked taxi. “Reflecting a short, but frightening period of loss of liberty.
“We take loss of liberty seriously in this country,” added the judge.
“You could have no complaint if I passed an immediate custodial sentence on you, but I have taken into account your loss of character and career.”
Wilkinson must also pass an extended driving test before his licence is restored.
A probation officer described diabetic Wilkinson as a “polite and social individual largely” who could do around 7 hours community service a week.
His lawyer Miss Shanthi Sivakumaran told the court Wilkinson has one son, a social worker, and one grand daughter and lives alone, paying a £1,500 per month mortgage.
He has now lost his £2,000 per month taxi job. “That is going to stop with immediate effect.
“He is concerned he has lost his livelihood snd is concerned about how losing his licence will impact finding a new job.
“He is very afraid he is going to lose his home and other assets he has.”
Judge Richardson told her at the conclusion: “I thought you represented a very unpleasant client extremely well.”
The jury took only approximately thirty minutes to convict first-time offender Wilkinson, who had not been suspended as a cabbie pending the trial.
Ms Ebrahimi told the jury it was just after 8pm when she hailed the cab outside her ITN office in Gray’s Inn Road to go to her Notting Hill home.
“I was asking the taxi driver if he could put up the heating,” she told the jury. “The air coming out of the vents was colder than the air in the taxi.
“He was saying the heating was already on and I said it couldn’t be on. He wasn’t accepting that there wasn’t heating.
“He became frustrated and said: ‘If you’re going to be like that you’d better get out.’
“I thought that was really unfair, it was a cold night, I had a half-an-hour journey and taxi’s are expensive.
“I was quite upset. I didn’t understand why he was so angry….Why he was taking it so personally.”
She recorded 90 seconds of the row on her phone, which was played to the jury, who heard her repeatedly pleading: “Can you let me out of the car please.
“I feel very much under threat. I don’t feel safe.”
She told the court: “I said: ‘If you’re going to kick me out here, I’m not going to pay. It was only three or four pounds.
“At that point he told me: ‘Well I’m not going to let you out then. I’m going to take you where I got you. I’m going to take you to the police station.”
Wilkinson then did a u-turn. “He said: ‘Don’t you think the police will be busy on a day like this dealing with the likes of you.
“The ‘day like this’ was the Westminster attack, the terrorist attack. It seemed like a strange thing to tell someone.”
Earlier that day 52 year-old Khalid Masood killed four Westminster Bridge pedestrians he ran over in an van and stabbed to death PC Keith Palmer outside the House of Commons.
“I thought this had escalated to something I couldn’t even comprehend. I said: ‘Please let me out of the cab.’
“I couldn’t understand his motivation, it seemed a bigger threat. He started to say things like: ‘This country use’d to have good people. This city had class.’
“That seemed like a personal attack, that he had an axe to grind.
“I couldn’t open the doors. They were locked during this whole period.
“I thought: ’Should I climb out of the window? but that’s an idiot’s guide. I could break my neck, I was caught in a panic.”
She described Wilkinson’s behaviour as “sinister” and having a greater motivation than a lost fare.
“He called me a thief and when I pleaded that I was feeling unsafe he said he was feeling unsafe to.
“To me it seemed like an incredibly frightening situation. It felt like to me racist attacks, very personal.”
Wilkinson dropped her off near Gray’s Inn Road and can be heard on the recording shouting: “Get out of my cab!”
Ms Ebrahimi stood by the open door filming Wilkinson’s number. “As I was filming the car’s id plate the car went forward and came back and hit me and I went flying into the air.
“I was struck backwards about a metre and a half and fell on my right side.”
She called the police when a second taxi drove her home. “I had bruises on my knees and legs and a trapped sciatic nerve due to the fall on the lower part of my back.”
Ms Ibrahim is the former Senior City Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and was a journalist at the Mail on Sunday and CNBC.
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