UK: Award Winning Black Soap-Star Refuses to Pay Taxi Fare and Punches Driver in the Face

Daily Mail
July 14, 2014

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Khali Best was suspended from his role as mechanic Dexter Harman on EastEnders just months after winning Best Newcomer in the National Television Awards for ‘attacking a taxi driver’.

Award-winning EastEnders actor Khali Best punched a taxi driver in the face after refusing to pay a £61 fare on his way home from a red carpet ceremony, it is claimed.

Best, who plays mechanic Dexter Harman in the BBC One soap, allegedly left 63-year-old Peter Callow with a bleeding black eye and £600-worth of damage.

It came just months after he was named Best Newcomer at the National Television Award

Cautioned by police for criminal damage and common assault, the 26-year-old star was also suspended from his role in EastEnders for three months following the attack in March.

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Best, pictured in the BBC One soap, allegedly punched Peter Callow in the face to avoid paying £61.

Best was leaving the Television and Radio Industries Club Awards at London’s Grosvenor Hotel when he hailed Mr Callow’s cab and asked for a lift to Enfield in north London.

But he soon realised he had no money for the trip – which lasted 45 minutes and cost £61 – and began to phone friends, according to the Sun on Sunday’s Dan Sales.

Mr Callow told the paper: ‘I told him if he had a card he could put it into the machine I had in the cab but he wasn’t having any of it.

‘He then said “No, no, no” and with that he started kicking the car door. I got round to stop him doing it and he managed to open the door and thumped me.’

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Giving them things does not make them behave better.

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