Attenborough colleague in road rage rant at family
AS AN award-winning BBC wildlife documentary maker Fergus Beeley witnessed his fair share of aggressive male creatures in the wild.
Travelling the world working with Sir David Attenborough, he helped bring displays of animals including magnificent bears and packs of wolves to the nation’s screens.
But in an era of mobile phones and viral video, the tables have apparently now been turned on the filmmaker. Footage of his own display of aggression in a road rage incident has been widely shared, with his exhibition appearing to owe more to Basil Fawlty than the majesties of the animal kingdom.
Mr Beeley’s anger, directed in an extensive rant, is all the more impressive because he is due to speak at a “Mindfulness in Nature” festival in September. The footage, captured at a lay-by on the M27 on Saturday, shows the documentary maker screaming “get ready to die!” at a family of four during a fracas captured on camera by onlookers.
Mr Beeley, who worked as a senior producer for the BBC’S Natural History Unit until 2007, is believed to have flown into a rage following a minor collision near Portsmouth.
Pulling up beside the family in a black Peugeot 107, the film shows him delivering a tirade at father Simon Gale, 33, his wife Louise, their young son and Mr Gale’s mother-in-law. Mr Beeley also reportedly insisted at one point that he was an off-duty policeman. The veteran documentary maker, who has worked on series including the Natural World and Planet Earth, proceeded to grab Mr Gale in front of his wife and 11-yearold son, before claiming that he was placing them under a “citizen’s arrest”.
Confronting the family after they had pulled up at a lay-by Mr Beeley can be heard screaming: “I do want you dead... put your hands on the car and get ready to die, this is a citizen’s arrest.” He then points to Mr Gale’s wife and says: “You’re under a citizen’s arrest, you’re under a citizen’s arrest, and I tell you what, you are too.” Mr Beeley is thought to have been incensed by the family’s vehicle coming into contact with his wife’s car, which was travelling in front of him.
Speaking to reporters after the incident, Mr Gale, of Salisbury, Wilts, alleged: “It was quite a scary thing – he flew into an absolute raving state. This car pulled across into our lane and hit our car – our whole car moved and we almost got knocked into the outside lane. We pulled over to the side of the road and my wife got out of the car to exchange insurance details with this woman – I didn’t really think anything of it at the time.
“Then Fergus Beeley pulled up behind us in a different car and started screaming and shouting at us.
“When he got out the car he demanded, ‘Do you know who I am?’, and when I said I didn’t he grabbed me and pushed me against the car. Luckily none of us are harmed in any way – but we’re still quite shaken by it.”
Mr Beeley was yesterday seen driving his black Peugeot around the village of Badminton, Gloucs, where he lives with his wife, a doctor, and their two young girls, but was unavailable to comment. Neighbours living close to the family’s farmhouse, which sits within the grounds of the Duke of Beaufort’s estate, said the incident had been “completely out of character”.
Hampshire Police confirmed that officers attended the incident on Saturday morning, adding that two men had made allegations of common assault but had decided not to press charges.