Car Collision Violently Escalates to Robbery and Assault

Yesterday’s trial of local London man, Khalid Abdullah, continued in London’s Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday. The trial was presided over by Judge Recorder A. Lock. Abdullah has been accused of assaulting and stealing a mobile phone, as well as £200, from Kashif Alahuddin during a road rage altercation after his and Alahuddin’s vehicles had collided.

According to two police statements read by the prosecuting counsel, Rebecca Steels, the incident, which occurred on July 27, 2021, happened when Abdullah and Alahuddin’s vehicles had a minor collision resulting in damages to Abdullah’s car bumper.

The altercation took place at the intersection of Bayswater road and Queensway. According to the prosecution, the encounter violently escalated and resulted in Abdullah throwing Alahuddin towards a telephone box.

As a result of the encounter Alahuddin received cuts on his left arm, lacerations on the back of his head and bruises to the elbow. Photographs of the injuries were shown to the jury by the prosecution.

Abdullah was arrested that day at 17:24 when he arrived at the Hammersmith Police Station. He was charged with robbery, theft and assault. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The officer in charge of the case, DC Owen Morgan, interviewed Abdullah the following day. According to the statements from the interview, Abdullah was confused as to why he was arrested. He told the police he assumed that he was coming to the station to give a statement and claimed that Alahuddin was giving a false version of events.

According to the account he gave the police, after the collision had happened, Abdullah tried to settle the matter privately with Alahuddin as it was a minor accident. He said Alahuddin then got out of his car and immediately started filming Abdullah without his consent. Abdullah told the police due to a previous traumatic incident, he had asked Alahuddin to stop recording him.

Abdullah said in his statement to the police that Alahuddin would not stop recording and that is when he took his phone in order to delete the video. According to his statement, Alahuddin took his car keys in response. He then started running away when Abdullah tackled him and took his keys back. According to him, he was not aware that Alahuddin was severely injured and he did not steal his phone or money.

Abdullah then later admitted during the interview that he did indeed take Alahuddin’s phone, but that he allegedly took it by mistake because he was in a panic. He told the police that once he realised he had the phone he threw it down a drain, because he did not want to be accused of stealing it.

Regarding the altercation, Abdullah told the officer, “My intentions were not to hurt him, my intentions were pure.”

DC Morgan was then questioned by Abdullah’s defence counsel, Rory Fields, as to why there wasn’t any CCTV footage of the incident and why the officer did not retrieve the phone after Abdullah told them where it was. Morgan replied that he could not find useable footage of the incident and the police station was under-resourced so they were unable to retrieve it.

The judge then called a break for lunch before hearing further arguments from the defence counsel.