RYAN: NEW DRIVER PICKED PEDESTRIAN AT RANDOM AND CHASED HIM ALONG PAVEMENT

A boy racer chased a terrified pedestrian along a pavement at high speed after picking on him at random late at night, a court heard today (Mon).

Sam Ryan, 19, warned Chris Beattie he was going to ‘get a beating’ before mounting the kerb in his Vauxhall Corsa and driving directly at him, it is claimed.

The victim was forced to ‘zig zag’ along the street as Ryan, who had passed his driving test just 40 days before, performed repeated U-turns in the course of the pursuit.

When Mr Beattie rang 999 on his mobile phone, the operator was so concerned by what he heard that he urged him to ‘run’, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Giving evidence, Mr Beattie said he was walking back from a night out in the early hours of May 1 last year along Albion Road in Bexleyheath, southeast London, when he spotted the car.

As he reached the roundabout leading into Townley Road, a dark coloured Corsa with a driver and three passengers pulled up next to him and offered him a lift.

‘I thought it was a strange request, and I obviously declined. I said “Thank you anyway”,’ he told the court.

He then saw the car reverse the wrong way around a roundabout towards three girls.

‘Obviously I knew something wasn’t right, so I dialled 999 straight away,’ he said.

‘I said to the operator something like: “I think I’m about to be attacked”, or something similar.’

The court heard that the occupants of the Corsa shouted abuse at the girls before turning their attention back to Mr Beattie.

He said: ‘They pulled up alongside me and said: “Have you got a lighter?”

‘I said “No, I don’t smoke”.

‘This all happened while I was on the phone to the operator.

The jury heard that the vehicle drove off but performed a U-turn and the driver asked Mr Beattie the way to Dartford, before becoming ‘abusive’.

‘He said: “You had better not be on the phone to the police or you are going to get a beating”,’ he told the court.

‘I continued to walk and the operator could hear what was happening, and he said: “Run now, bang on someone’s door and try and get away”.’

Ryan is then said to have driven onto the pavement and directly at Mr Beattie.

He said: ‘The whole of the car was on the pavement. I had to get out of the way.’

Mr Beattie told the court he was forced to run into the middle of the road to escape the Corsa, and ‘had to keep zig-zagging’ as it continued to pursue him.

He said he used the raised traffic island in the middle of the road to avoid the vehicle.

Eventually he managed to duck into his own street and reach his home.

‘I banged on the door and my mother let me in’, he said.

He said his pursuers continued to drive up and down the road ‘looking for me’ before eventually leaving, just before the police arrived.

Prosecutor Jonathan Chibafa told the court: ‘The defendant was a new driver. He had had his license for some 40 days.’

Ryan, of Maple Road, Dartford, Kent, denies dangerous driving.