Knife pulled at service station as tempers flare under the strain
Driver threatens to ‘slice’ another motorist after accusing him of jumping the queue for petrol
TENSIONS have run so high at petrol stations that one person pulled a knife on another queuing driver, it has emerged.
As the fuel crisis intensified, the man threatened to “slice” a driver who was accused of jumping the line at a Shell garage.
Footage of the incident in Welling, south-east London, that was filmed on Monday afternoon but came to light yesterday shows the man brandishing a knife and shouting at the driver of a blue Citroën before smashing the car’s wing mirror.
Fellow drivers stayed inside their cars and watched as the motorist rammed the alleged knifeman, carrying him for several yards on his bonnet.
Tempers are thought to have flared between the pair after the man, who claimed he had been queuing for petrol since 8am, accused the other motorist of overtaking the host of drivers parked outside the station.
As the row threatened to boil over, Stefan Silva, a 29-year-old engineer from Kent, intervened, telling the man: “It’s not worth stabbing somebody over trying to get a bit of fuel.”
The Met Police has said it is investigating the incident, the latest in a series of violent flare-ups on the roads since fuel shortages prompted long queues on forecourts.
In nearby New Eltham, a brawl erupted between two motorists who traded punches on a Shell forecourt before passers-by pulled them apart.
On Saturday, another fight broke out between two families at an Esso station in Chichester, West Sussex, over fuel. In footage captured by onlookers, the four men can be seen punching one another before wrestling each other to the ground.
Yesterday supermarkets began to give priority access for fuel to police, fire, NHS and other emergency service workers.
Staff at a Tesco station in Cleveland, north Somerset, allowed emergency workers to fill up their vehicles yesterday morning as fuel stocks ran low.
Motorists arriving at the forecourt were told they could not fill up until a new delivery of diesel and petrol arrived and were asked to wait in the superstore car park next door.
However, emergency service staff were allowed on to the forecourt, where three aisles of petrol and diesel pumps had been blocked to the public.
One of those waiting to fill up was Chris Parsons, 34, a carpenter from Bristol. “It’s very frustrating because I have been here for an hour and I’ve got a job to go to,” he said. “But I think it is only fair that they are prioritising the police and NHS when supplies are low.”
A source at Tesco said the supermarket had no “general policy” to prioritise key workers but added that managers were free to use their individual “judgment”.
A Morrisons petrol station in
‘God forbid someone is in hospital needing a blood product or someone is at home and they can’t get it because we are stuck in queues of traffic’
Newquay, Cornwall, also reportedly began prioritising fuel for ambulance workers and police, but teaching unions warned that the move could cause “more chaos”.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “The last thing children need is further disruption to education given the experience of the last 18 months.
“Prioritising key workers is not a sensible solution as it would be impossible to enforce and could cause more chaos on the forecourts.
“The only real answer is for the Government to do everything in its power to get fuel to pumps and bring this situation to an end.”
Efforts to prioritise key workers did not appear to have eased difficulties for some essential workers. Blood deliveries for hospitals have also suffered delays as a result of the ongoing crisis. Up to half of the so-called “bloodrunners” in Kent have been unable to go out in recent days because of problems getting fuel.
Johan Pieterse from SERV Kent, a charity that transports crucial blood products to hospitals in the county for free out of hours, said the challenges were “frustrating”.
He said: “We have had a drop-off of about 50 per cent of our members who can’t go on rota because they can’t get fuel since Friday night.
“It’s frustrating because we don’t see the need for panic-buying and all it’s doing is affecting all emergency services, not just us.
“God forbid someone is in hospital needing a blood product or someone is at home and they can’t get it because we are stuck in queues of traffic.”
Lawyers have also reported being forced to siphon fuel from their friends’ cars to attend trials, saying that the crisis, combined with a backlog of cases, risks “tipping a creaking system over the edge”.
Nicola Moore, a barrister, said that she had bought a pump to get fuel from a friend’s lorry so she could prosecute in a serious case involving the rape of a child.
“I went to 10 petrol stations, I tried to call around another half a dozen but they didn’t answer the phone.
“This young girl reported serious sexual abuse in 2017. We have had three aborted trial dates and it didn’t get to the Crown Court until 2019. I bought a pump online from Halfords to siphon fuel out of a horse lorry that belonged to a friend of mine into my diesel car.”
Elsewhere, a judge reportedly asked a lawyer who requested a remote hearing to show how much petrol she had left in her car before granting her request.
The decision to allow a trial to be conducted remotely is down to individual judges, but even those which are not held in person sometimes require defendants on remand to be transported to court, or to rooms that are equipped for remote trials.
Now even prison staff have reported that they do not have the fuel to do that.