Court / Driver laughed as frightened passengers pleaded to be let out of car, trial hears
William Ratter also fell out of witness box and had to be told to ‘calm down’
A DRIVER who was videoed laughing as his scared passengers asked to be let out the car has been found guilty of threatening behaviour after a trial.
William Ratter, from Haroldswick, Unst, had picked up four passengers walking from Baltasound to Haroldswick after an UnstFest event on 23 July 2023.
But his driving was described as “erratic” and at high speeds approaching corners, which had left the group “scared” and anxious”.
A video was shown to Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday of the passengers asking Ratter to stop or slow down, with the driver heard “hollering” and laughing at one point.
Ratter denied the charge of threatening and abusive behaviour, claiming he had not been able to hear the passengers’ cries because his car had no exhaust.
And the 55-year-old said the vehicle would not be able to reach the speeds that witnesses had claimed it had reached.
He described it as “like putting a jockey on a donkey and telling it to go and win the Grand National”.
Ratter gave evidence for himself during a trial on Thursday and was continually chastised for his “argumentative” behaviour towards procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie.
At one point Ratter became so animated he fell out of the witness box.
“Calm down, you’re literally falling out of the witness box,” Mackenzie told him.
The court heard Ratter, also known as William Ballard, picked up the four passengers as they attempted to walk back from the Baltasound Hall to their accommodation in Haroldswick.
That was because they did not have enough money for a bus that was going from the UnstFest event.
One of the passengers who accepted the lift from Ratter at around 1am gave evidence remotely.
The lift was initially “accepted gratefully”, but she said Ratter was soon driving “quite fast and erratically”.
“We were quite scared,” she said. “He was driving very fast and braking sharply into corners.
“I asked him to slow down.”
Despite “repeated requests” Ratter actually seemed to speed up, she said, and asked for his reaction she said Ratter was “laughing”.
She started filming his driving on her phone. Asked why she did so, she replied that she “didn’t know what was going to happen next”.
“I was thinking about if something really terrible happened we might want evidence,” she added.
The video was shown to the court, and two female passengers could be heard asking Ratter to slow down or let them out.
A male passenger, sitting in the front, put his hand up to get him to stop and asked him to do so.
Ratter was heard to laugh in the video and at one point hollered.
Defence agent Tommy Allan put it to the woman that the group had “just overreacted” to this.
He also suggested that they had been drinking too much, and that Ratter had been unable to hear them because the car was so loud due to his lack of an exhaust.
She said however that the car did not seem overly loud, and that she had “tried to remain calm” because she “didn’t want to escalate the situation”.
Another female passenger also gave evidence to Lerwick Sheriff Court remotely on Wednesday.
She said the car felt “very quick and didn’t feel remotely safe” after they were picked up by Ratter in the early hours of 23 July.
She said she was “very scared”, “very anxious and very upset” during the journey.
The video was shown again to the court and to the second woman, and Ratter was seen to laugh and shake his head in the dock during this.
Mackenzie put it to her that she sounded “terrified” during the video, and she replied: “I would agree with that”.
Despite hearing that Ratter was travelling at high speed throughout the journey, she said she believed he had never exceeded the 60mph speed limit.
She was wearing a watch that tracked her movements, which clocked a top speed of 57mph.
However she said Ratter was driving into corners at high speed, and was not slowing down when asked to do so.
Allan put it to her that the car had no exhaust which might have affected Ratter’s ability to hear his passengers’ pleas.
She admitted that the car was “very loud”.
And again Allan suggested that the group had simply over-reacted, and perhaps did not know the roads as well as Ratter did.
“I feel like we were in a dangerous situation and that’s why I was scared,” she replied.
Allan tried to have the case thrown out at this point, saying Ratter had no case to answer because he was not threatening or abusive to his passengers.
But Mackenzie successfully argued that the law was “not a requirement for someone to make threats”, but that their behaviour in itself was threatening.
He said the law “contains a multitude of sins”.
Ratter was the final person to give evidence, and he did so in a chaotic and scattergun manner that left the courtroom bemused.
He said he had been out taking pictures in the south of Unst when he came across the group and offered to give them a run home.
His car was a Citroen C1 with a three cylinder engine and no exhaust, he said, which he said was “very loud” but had “no power”.
He said the first he heard of his passengers asking him to stop the car was near a quarry or passing place, and said there was “no way in a million years I’m going to stop the car” there.
Asked if he could really not hear his passengers’ pleas for him to stop, he said: “I could hear a lot of noise in the back but I just thought they were drunk.”
Ratter said he was “taken aback” by their request to get out of the car, adding there was “nothing to be scared of”.
“There’s nothing wrong about my driving,” he said.
Asked by Allan if he had been “taking corners at excessive speed”, Ratter compared his car to a donkey trying to win the Grand National.
Mackenzie asked Ratter why he was heard to laugh and holler in the video shown to the court, but Ratter described it as “nervous giggling”.
He was asked why he was nervous, and said it was because of “all the screaming in the back of the car”.
Ratter spoke over the top of Mackenzie, to which the fiscal told him: “I’ll ask the questions, do you understand that?”
He claimed his car would do no more than 50mph with so many people in the car, to which Mackenzie put it to him that he was clocked doing 57mph.
“Absolute nonsense,” Ratter replied. “She was that drunk”.
He was ordered not to be argumentative by Mackenzie, to which he replied: “Come on, bring it, show me the evidence.”
Ratter said he could not believe the people had asked him to let them out because he was “doing them a favour”.
At this point Ratter stumbled out of the side of the witness box and had to be told to “calm down”.
In summary Mackenzie said the group had made “clear and unambiguous requests” to be let out of the car, which Ratter had ignored.
He said Ratter had driven “erratically and at excessive speed”.
Allan, however, said Ratter “knows the roads and knows the vehicle”.
He admitted that what had happened was “unfortunate”, and said people had clearly not reacted well to the situation.
“But that doesn’t amount to a crime being committed,” Allan added.
Sheriff Ian Cruickshank disagreed however, finding Ratter guilty of the amended charge of threatening or abusive behaviour by driving recklessly and at excessive speed.
Sentence was deferred on Ratter for the preparation of background reports. He will return for sentencing on 19 March.
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