A London lorry driver tossed his teabag at one Greggs assistant before chucking his cup of tea at another, a court heard.
Alexander Peterson, 49, pulled into Leigh Delamere Service Station on the M4 near Chippenham on 17 September last year to take a legally required break from driving.
He walked into Greggs and ordered his food and drink before being asked, whilst being handed a cup of tea by a retail assistant, to move to the side of the store.
Crown prosecutor Keith Ballinger today told Swindon Magistrates’ Court that Peterson has then thrown – through a gap in a COVID screen – the teabag from his drink at the worker, hitting her chest.
Angry about what had happened, an argument between another female Greggs employee and the defendant ensued. It ended with the second assistant following the Peterson out of the building and across the car park where it’s said he’s thrown his cup of tea at her.
But defence solicitor Gordon Hotson claimed the defendant, of Whitestone Way, Croyden, had been called a pervert by the retail assistant, and couldn’t work out why.
“He ordered his tea and food but when he was handed it, [the assistant] has mutter under her breach ‘you perv’, or something to that effect”, he told the court.
Adding: “It upset him, he didn’t do anything to warrant that.”
Mr Hotson said his client accepted he ‘flipped’ the teabag at her in response to the remake made towards him and that he threw the cup of tea in the general direction of the woman’s colleague in the car park after she had followed him to obtain Peterson’s employer’s details.
He went on to say his client has been a lorry driver since around the age of 21, has worked as a key worker throughout the pandemic and is single with no children and lives alone.
Peterson was fined £100 and £150 for two counts of assault by beating, ordered to pay costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £34.
