Terrified woman was left hanging out of car at busy roundabout

Shoppers in the centre of Keighley saw the young mother’s legs sticking out of the white VW Golf as she tried to kick open the door to escape, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Sohieb Tahir shouted at the woman to “get back in” and threatened to crash the car if he did not listen to her.

Another motorist called the police when he saw the distressed woman’s legs waving out of the vehicle on the roundabout at Hard Ings Road, near Keighley Retail Park, at 4pm on Sunday, June 16.

The witness noted the Golf’s registration number and when police traced the woman passenger she was limping and had suffered bruising to her leg from the car door being shut on it.

Tahir, 27, who was living in Belgrave Road, Keighley, at the time pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The court heard that the woman had ended her 12 month relationship with him but he had not taken the break-up well.

When they met up in the middle of Keighley, he offered to give her a lift but became angry when she told him she needed to collect her child.

He grabbed her hair, slammed the car door shut and drove off, prosecutor Deborah Smithies said.

She eventually managed to jump out of the vehicle and escape.

Jayne Beckett, Tahir’s barrister, said his victim had since made a statement saying she had provoked him and accepting some responsibility for what happened.

She had changed her mobile phone number and moved home.

Tahir had been in custody since August. He had left Keighley and wanted to start a new life in Sheffield where his family lived.

He was a hardworking man who accepted that the relationship was over, Mrs Beckett said.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, sentenced Tahir to a two year community order with a four month curfew order. He must attend the Building Better Relationships programme with the probation service to address issues of being possessive and controlling.