Jeremy Vine’s road rage driver jailed after losing appeal
A DRIVER who threatened BBC presenter Jeremy Vine as he was cycling home from work has been jailed.
Shanique Syrena Pearson told the journalist she would knock him out and screamed at him during the road rage incident in west London last summer.
The confrontation was captured on his helmet camera and has been viewed online millions of times.
The 22-year-old motorist, who has a son aged three, was convicted in February but appealed. Her legal challenge was dismissed at Isleworth Crown Court yesterday where she was told she would spend at least half of her ninemonth sentence behind bars.
Judge Phillip Matthews told her: “This was a bad case of loss of control by you, letting your anger take over. It has happened in the past.”
Pearson has a string of previous convictions and, at the time of the offence on August 26, was serving a suspended sentence for theft, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and resisting arrest.
Giving evidence during the appeal, Vine said: “I felt threatened. I felt I was in danger. I felt I was dealing with a violent person.”
He was cycling in the middle of a street which had parked cars on either side, but stopped after being honked at by the driver of a black Vauxhall Corsa behind him.
In the video clip Pearson can be heard swearing at Vine, who tries to explain he was avoiding car doors.
She was convicted of driving an unlicensed vehicle, driving without reasonable consideration for other road users and using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.
Pearson, of Vauxhall, south London, claimed Vine’s evidence she made a gun symbol with her hand during the incident was not truthful, and her lawyer James O’Keeffe suggested he had racially stereotyped Pearson “as a black person with a gun”. The claim was dismissed by the judge.
Mr O’Keeffe said Pearson had been the victim of domestic abuse in the past, which may have been a factor in her angry reaction.
Pearson was also ordered to pay a £140 victim surcharge.