Bigot 'degraded' terrified taxi driver in racist rant at 2am
A Shropshire man who used vile slurs in a racially abusive tirade against a taxi driver who had asked him to pay his way upfront has narrowly avoided jail.
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The frightened driver feared for his safety when a "screaming" Brett Willets squared up to him, a court heard.
Prosecutor Katie Price told Telford Magistrates Court the confrontation came about in the early hours of July 31 last year in Aberystwyth, when Willets and another man approached Shadat Choudury as he sat in his taxi in Great Darkgate Street.
The two men asked the driver if he was working and if he could take them to Borth, the court heard.
After they got in the back of the taxi, Mr Choudury said the fare would be £23 and asked for it to be paid upfront, at which point Willets, of Ellesmere Road in Shrewsbury, became abusive.
"One of them [Willets] started becoming verbally aggressive," Mrs Price said. "The other one tried to calm him down.
"[Willets] started swearing in the back of the taxi. He said 'are you teaching me to speak my language?' The man then got out of the taxi."
Willets, who is 31, then called the driver a P***, told him to "go back to [his] own country" and said "you don't even belong here".
