A BINMAN has been cleared of damaging a parked car, driving off and then making threats.
Carlton Dowell, of Hyson Green, had been accused of crashing into a car in Brindley Road, Bilborough, leaving the scene, threatening the friend of the car owner, and then returning the next day to make further threats.
But this last charge was thrown out at Nottingham Magistrates Court yesterday before the verdict was given because a tracking device fitted to bin lorries proved that the 54-year-old had not stopped for as long as prosecution witnesses said he had outside the address when he returned.
Mr Dowell was then found not guilty of failing to stop after an accident, failing to report an accident and threatening behaviour. In court, Mr Dowell's barrister, Makham Shoker, claimed witnesses had collaborated. Mr Shoker said: "Witnesses have been caught out by independent evidence. That could not be confusion or exaggeration, it's a down-right lie by three witnesses."
Magistrates heard car owner Jonathan Rice, 20, of West Bridgford, had parked across the narrow road while visiting friend Anthony Pearson, 26, of Brindley Road. Neither claimed to have seen the alleged incident on August 6 last year but Nigel Pearson - a neighbour and Anthony's father - said he saw the lorry scrape the side of Mr Rice's car.
The two friends followed the bin lorry in Mr Pearson's car, where an exchange took place between them and Mr Dowell, of Plantation Side.
Giving evidence in court, Mr Dowell said: "He banged on the door of my cab and shouted at me that I had hit his car. I asked him 'where is it?' [the car] and he pointed up the road. When I went to walk towards it he pointed the other way. I thought he was trying to get one over on me. That's when I got a little upset. I did swear, I told him to leave me alone, then I got in my lorry and that was the last I saw him." Mr Dowell's colleague Mark Burrell told the court no threats were made.
Steve Taylor, prosecuting the case, refuted the suggestion that the witnesses had lied. He said: "Nigel Pearson has no reason to make this up and no reason to lie about it. He didn't even know this vehicle belonged to a friend of his son. That would be less credible if they lived in the same house, but they don't. He lives across the road."
Magistrates concluded that there were "too many inconsistencies" in the case.
