Somerset Gimp’s victims reveal the horror of the moment he pounced on them as they drove home at night, wearing a masked black latex suit.
Yesterday, self-employed gardener Joshua Hunt, 32, from Claverham, was found guilty of frightening female motorists.
In one incident on May 7, a victim said she was the “most scared” she had ever been when she saw someone dressed in an all-black skin-tight suit and with two white crosses over their eyes.
Recalling the terrifying moment, the victim said: ‘I have never felt such fear before, or since, and I can only describe the scene as something you would see in a horror film, that’s how scared I was.’
The bizarre incidents took place in Bleadon, Somerset. Martin Mills, a passenger in a vehicle traveling nearby, saw a man crawling ‘command’ across the floor. “I see they were all black and shiny and the car lights were reflecting on him,” he said.
Yesterday, 32-year-old self-employed gardener Joshua Hunt (pictured) was found guilty of frightening female drivers as they drove home at night
A photo of the ‘Somerset Gimp’ in Claverham in 2019, but it has not been proven that the person in this photo is Hunt
A mask recovered from Joshua Hunt by Avon and Somerset Police as part of their investigation
In the statement read out in court, she added: ‘I started shaking, I felt like I was having a panic attack and my first thought was that this was some kind of kidnap attempt.’
“I became very paranoid as I drove away from this person, and I couldn’t comprehend what I had seen.”
Another victim who called police on May 9 said it was the “worst night of (her) life.”
In her statement she said: ‘When I came around the corner this person was dressed in a black, a black shiny suit or something called a ‘gimp suit’.
“(A family member) was screaming in fear and she looked absolutely terrified. Her scream was terrible and while I was still driving I had to keep control of the car to avoid a crash. I screamed, and it terrified me to see this little guy on the road, it really scared me.
“I didn’t know what he wanted to do, what his intentions were, and it was just so surreal and creepy.”
She added that she had recently left her job as a result of the incident and that she was “tired of being scared while traveling to and from work, and having to think about it all the time.”
Hunt told the court that on the two nights he was seen on the side of the road he wanted to commit suicide by being hit by a car.
“It never occurred to me that what I was doing was scaring people,” he said
Joshua Hunt leaves Bristol Magistrates’ Court this afternoon after his sentencing
Masks recovered from Hunt, who has been found guilty of two breaches of the Public Order Act
Clothing recovered from Hunt, who was today convicted in court of being the ‘Somerset Gimp’
Avon and Somerset Police today released this photo of Joshua Hunt following his conviction
Hunt was convicted of two offenses under the Public Order Act of causing malicious harassment at Bristol Magistrates’ Court.
District Judge Joanna Dickens fined Hunt £100 at Bristol Magistrates’ Court and told him he must pay £200 compensation to each of his victims plus £620 prosecution costs. She accepted that Hunt had apologized and spent a month in jail.
Avon and Somerset Police confirmed Hunt had previously been arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance following a series of other ‘gimp’ incidents in the Cleeve, Claverham and Yatton areas last year.
But a lack of evidence for all other incidents meant he could only be charged for the two in Bleadon.
Hunt had searched the internet for the ‘Somerset Gimp’ and the ‘Gimp of Cleeve’ in 2022 and 2023, the court heard.