Judge slams ‘disgraceful’ drop-off fees at airport
TEACHER SPARED JAIL OVER ‘£3 ROAD RAGE’ INCIDENT PLUS: BOSS VOWS TO ‘CRACK DOWN’ ON ROGUE BAGGAGE HANDLERS
A SENIOR judge dubbed new Manchester Airport drop-off fees ‘unjust’ and an ‘absolute disgrace’ as he freed a teacher who left a parking official fearing for his life during a road rage row over the charges.
Graham Benbow, 55, lost his temper and attempted to drive through an open barrier at the airport after being told he would have to pay £3 for dropping off a passenger.
The official tried to stop him by standing against the barrier, but ended up on the bonnet of Benbow’s Mazda 3 hatchback and was carried along the road for several hundred yards.
During the ‘manic’ incident, Benbow – a psychology teacher at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls – went over a roundabout before eventually stopping for police as he was about to join the M56.
The unnamed airport official was uninjured in the incident but said he ‘genuinely believed he could die from falling off the bonnet.’
At Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, Benbow, of Stockton Heath, near Warrington, faced up to two years in jail after he admitted dangerous driving.
He wept as he was told he would get six months in jail suspended for two years – with Judge Bernard Lever saying he was ‘100 per cent against’ the new charges introduced at the airport last July.
In sentencing, the judge said: “Although it is no excuse for dangerous driving, I think that it is an absolute disgrace that people cannot deliver people to airports without paying an extraordinary amount.
“I was dropping off my cousin at the airport on Sunday and I was warned by my sister that the airport charges had been introduced so I looked for a sign when I arrived – but if I did not know I might not have seen it. “The airport already does make a lot of money and does not need to charge £3 for people to drop people off. My sister warned me that by the time you have got to the front you are allowed just minutes or seconds and they start charging you more. “I saw a troop of elderly people who had been dropped off away from the airport trying to avoid these unjust charges. These were not young joggers, they were elderly people who had to be dropped off some distance away from the airport.” The judge told Benbow: ‘’You are fortunate indeed that I have faced these facilities myself recently. “Whilst I am 100 per cent against your behaviour and losing self control, I am 100pc against the airport behaving in this manner against people who have no or little choice at dropping their families at the airport in this way. “I quite understand why you lost your rag and completely flipped in the way you did, but judges have to uphold the regulations that authorities at the airport are entitled to up their levy from time to time.
“I have to make it clear to everyone that they must not lose their temper. That does not retract from the fact that this was very dangerous driving and what you did was very reckless and dangerous.”
He added: ‘’You have worked for many years at a highly well-known and respected school and in a reference from the school principal, it states that you have never missed a day of work and you make yourself available for non-work days to provide additional cover. You always fulfil the demands of your job in an exemplary manner. This reference says you have been devastated by this case and very much regret what you have done. You have made a very positive contribution to your teaching and work despite the various difficulties you have faced with depression.
“But people must not lose their temper so that when the official comes along and tries to do their job, you make it very difficult for them. You drove your car in an opportunistic way when you were unable to get out without paying but the compliant got onto your bonnet.
“You were not driving at a great speed but it is wrong to drive along