Uber Driver Sentenced For Spitting At NHS Blood Courier

Spit: Folorunso

An Uber driver, who twice spat in the face of an NHS blood delivery motorcyclist when called out for making an illegal U-turn, was sentenced yesterday.

The blood was being delivered for a vital transfusion at King’s College Hospital when mini-cab driver Joseph Folorunso, 53, cut across the emergency worker’s path, forcing him to brake.

TfL-registered Folorunso, of Morant Court, Munton Road, Walworth was convicted after a trial of assaulting Samuel Veloso on April 9, last year in New Kent Road, Elephant & Castle.

At Croydon Magistrates’ Court he was sentenced to a Community Order, which includes 80 hours community service work.

He was also ordered to pay £375 costs, plus a £95 victim surcharge, but no compensation to the victim, due to lack of means.

Mr Veloso was travelling from St Thomas’s Hospital at 3.25 and told the trial: “Suddenly a driver in heavy traffic did a U-turn in front of me.

“I had to brake hard, put my life at risk and I shouted in a high voice: ‘Please what are you doing?’

“I told him: ‘You shouldn’t do a U-turn here,’ and he responded aggressively and came out of the car and went to punch me.

Blood: Veloso

“I told him there were loads of witnesses and he would be arrested.

“He looked around and then spat twice in my face, all over me. There was spit all over my jacket as well.

“It was a strong spit. He probably thought: ‘I’ll give a big spit.’

“It was very intentional and provocative.”

Mr Veloso, who reported Folorunso to passing police, denied shouting: “Is that the way you drive where you come from in your country.”

He told the trial: “I’m foreign. I was not born in this country and I would not tell someone to go back to their own country.”

When questioned by police Folorunso denied deliberately spitting at the motorcyclist, but accepted some spittle may have accidentally landed on the victim.

He told the court: “He started telling me: ‘Is that how you drive where you come from? You Uber don’t know how to drive.’

“It was kind of a racist comment and he also said: ‘I’ll get you banned. I’ll report you,’ and I was really-really angry.

“I did not spit on him at all. I would not do that, definitely not.”

Magistrate Terry Carpenter told him: “The act of spitting at someone in this day and age is a very nasty and obnoxious act.

“It is deliberately designed to instil fear into the person on the receiving end of it.”