Lockdown Good Samaritan chef wins fight over driving conviction
A CHEF wrongly targeted by police and prosecuted as he gave away food to children during lockdown has won a battle for justice.
Robert Robinson, 39, was convicted of a motoring offence amid claims he had the incorrect insurance for a delivery driver.
But an appeal at Sheffield Crown Court heard Mr Robinson was wrongly charged with using a motor vehicle without the correct insurance in 2021.
The chef claimed he was “racially profiled” by officers who “aggressively” stopped his car as he carried out good deeds during lockdown only because he was black.
Mr Robinson, who trained at world-renowned London restaurant
Le Cordon Bleu and has worked in a number of Michelin-starred venues, handed out 1,800 free meals from his Sheffield-based company The Personal Chef during lockdown as his weekly earnings plummeted from £1,600 to just £100.
Nice
He said: “At that time I had around 20 meals on the front seat for someone – to gift to them because they had five children and were in an abusive relationship.
“I was doing something nice for somebody and I was then told I was driving without the correct business insurance even though my car was fully comprehensively insured at the time.”
Mr Robinson has spent three years and £28,000 trying to overturn the conviction – which also led to six points on his licence and higher insurance premiums.
He tried to obtain body camera footage from South Yorkshire Police to help his case but was told that the recording was not available.
Now, after seeing the conviction overturned, he plans to sue the South Yorkshire force for compensation.
He added: “I lost a lot of money through the insurance. I just want that money back and an apology because I shouldn’t have had to go through any of this.” South Yorkshire Police said it had a “significant and unexplained reduction in data stored on our systems” in August 2023. This included body-worn footage recorded by officers between July 2020 and May 2023.
The force said: “We are unable to confirm if the body-worn video of the incident involving Mr Robinson is part of the affected data loss.
Forensic
“This is a possible explanation for the footage being unavailable and urgent work continues, led by digital forensic experts, to seek to recover the data.”
Mr Robinson had his conviction overturned at Sheffield Crown Court last month.