Top Gear star quizzed after incident with teenage gang

JEREMY Clarkson was questioned by police following an incident with youths that threatened to turn violent.

The Top Gear presenter explained in his column in The Sunday Times that the incident happened when he went to the Xscape sports complex in Milton Keynes for his youngest daughter’s birthday on November 23.

Mr Clarkson stepped outside for a cigarette when he was confronted by a gang of teenagers.

After being pestered, he asked them to leave him alone and when they did not he attempted to walk away.

When the gang followed him, he decided to lift the ringleader up off the ground by his hoodie.

Clarkson said in his column: “And so, figuring that attack was probably the best form of defence, I grabbed the ringleader by his hoodie, lifted him off the ground and explained, firmly, that it’d be best if he went back to his tenement.

“I was standing there holding this boy by the scruff of his neck, and instead of worrying about being stabbed I was actually thinking: ‘Jesus, I’m going to get done for assault if I’m not careful.’

“I therefore put him down, and in a flurry of swearing and hand gestures involving various fingers he was gone.”

The children began filming the incident on their mobile phones, although the footage does not appear to have made it onto the internet.

Thames Valley Police received a call from a 14-year-old girl informing them a man had been abusive towards her friend.

Officers arrived at the scene shortly after and spoke to witnesses, when it became clear the girl was part of a group who had earlier in the day been warned by security staff about their behaviour.

A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: “Mobile phone images were viewed, as well as CCTV footage, and it became apparent that, if any offence had occurred, it was the man who was the victim.”

Mr Clarkson was later interviewed at his home in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, when he told police that he did not wish to make a complaint, nor provide a statement.