Channel 4 Business Correspondent Relives Black Cab Ordeal

Helia Ebrahimi Leaving Blackfriars Crown Court

A black taxi driver locked Channel 4 business correspondent Helia Ebrahimi in his cab during a row over the heating and later ran her over as she tried to film his id plate on her phone, a court heard yesterday.

James Wilkinson, 57, allegedly told the Iranian-born broadcaster, 39, 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 has pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning Ms Ebrahimi on March 22 and driving dangerously in Roger Street, Holborn.

She told Blackfriars Crown Court 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.  

Trial continues………..