Man jailed after deliberately crashing into cars while high on drugs because he thought cars were being ‘badly driven’

A man has been jailed after deliberately slamming cars at speeds of 130mph while high on drugs.

Police say Gavin Bathurst-Shaw-Binning, 46, was on a mixture of cocaine, cannabis and alcohol as he ‘crazily’ drove his silver BMW 125 on the M3.

 

Gavin while viewing himself as the ‘enforcer of good driving’, deliberately crashed into what he considered ‘bad drivers’ during a 30-mile rampage on the busy motorway before he was arrested.

He destroyed the backs of nine cars during the half-hour spree of destruction, after which he punched the air in ‘triumphant victory’, a Winchester Crown Court heard.

 

Bathurst-Shaw-Binning even tried to ‘grab or damage’ the wing mirror of a car, according to one witness.

Prosecutor Jane Terry said: ‘The motorway was closed for an hour, which I feel is quite short given the trail that Mr Bathurst-Shaw-Binning left behind him.’

One of his targets was a mother of three driving her Tesla toward the M3 around 5.15pm when Bathurst-Shaw-Binning hit the car up to eight times on June 16 last year.

Ms Terry said: ‘She felt an impact at the rear side of her car. She described seeing the silver BMW behind her and he was repeatedly, deliberately, ramming the rear of her vehicle.

‘She pulled into the middle lane in an attempt to get away from him but he followed her and rammed her again.’

The woman pulled her Tesla into the hard shoulder and the silver BMW ‘got away’.

Bathurst-Shaw-Binning told police his rampage was a ‘once in a lifetime moment’ after ‘years of bad driving of other people’ through ‘tailgating’, ‘lane hogging’, and ‘driving slow’.

Bathurst-Shaw-Binning added: ‘I want to open up everyone else to keeping the outside lane clear.’

Judge Angela Morris described it as ‘pandemonium on a busy motorway in rush hour’.

Another driver said he had ‘never seen such dangerous, substandard driving’.

 

The prosecutor told the court: ‘He described the defendant to be driving like an absolute lunatic and he was shocked that he didn’t kill anyone.’

One driver, Lee Tosswill, thought he was about to die when Bathurst-Shaw-Binning crashed into the back of his vehicle, which spun him around to face oncoming traffic.

 

Ms Terry told the court: ‘He ended up on the hard shoulder. He described feeling a sudden pain in his neck and in his head.’

 

Witnesses saw Bathurst-Shaw-Binning ‘shake the air with his fist’ and ‘jumping up and down and shouting yeah’ while looking at the aftermath of the destruction.

One of these witnesses, Abbie Baker, said he then climbed into her vehicle saying ‘We need to go and see Charlie’.

She described him as being ‘incoherent and off his face’.

Ms Terry said: ‘He was targeting those whose standard of driving did not meet his expectations of driving.

‘He sees himself as some kind of enforcer of good driving and only targeted those who he considered were driving badly.’

Bathurst-Shaw-Binning, a former technician at a ‘multinational defence and aviation company’ in Middlesex, pleaded guilty to one count of dangerous driving, and four counts of causing criminal damage by driving recklessly.

Apologising through his lawyer Islam Khan, Bathurst-Shaw-Binning said: ‘I don’t know what happened to me that day and I don’t know why I was so stupid that my remorse did not appear when interviewed.’

 

Defence lawyer, Mr Khan said Bathurst-Shaw-Binning takes ‘full responsibility’ for his actions.

 

Mr Khan told the court: ‘Ramming like a maniac on that road on the 16th of June at that busy time… I don’t know what was going through his mind.

‘It sent shivers through my spine that if that were somebody else… what would I be doing.

‘I asked [Bathurst-Shaw-Binning] ‘What do you have to say about your actions’. He put his head down in shame and said ‘Sincerely, I am sorry as to what I have done’.’