A STUDENT who admitted chasing down a police car and threatening to punch a police officer in the face has claimed he was being unfairly targeted.

A court has heard that 20-year-old Aberystwyth University student Thanushen Ramanathan became angry after the car he was driving was pulled over by police for a suspected defective brake light just before 2am on Friday, 8 April.

For the prosecution, Helen Tench claimed that when Ramanathan was pulled over on Stanley Terrace, Aberystwyth, he asked for the police officers’ identification numbers and accused them of lying about his brake light.

After one of the police officers advised Ramanathan to get his brake light replaced and went to leave the area in the police car, Mrs Tench claimed that Ramanathan then positioned his own car across the road in order to stop them leaving and was shouting ‘f**k off’ at the officers.

One of the police officers then reversed the car and started heading back to the police station but soon noticed a car driving quickly towards them from behind while flashing its headlights, before the car overtook the police car on the wrong side of the road after turning off Park Avenue.

After both police officers got out of their car, Mrs Tench claimed that Ramanathan got out of his car, along with two friends who were filming with their mobile phones, and shouted at the police officers: “Lying f****** pigs.”

Ramanathan, of 281 Fencepiece Road, Chigwell, Essex, was then searched by the officers because of a “strong smell of cannabis” according to Mrs Tench.

But nothing was found and he soon became angry again when police asked him to spell his name, saying “I’m going to punch you in the face you f*****g pig”, before he was arrested.

Defending Ramanathan, Alison Mathias told Aberystwyth magitsrates: “Mr Ramanathan fully accepts the charges against him, but he has been stopped so many times by police he thought this was another attempt by them to aggravate him, and of course they succeeded.

“He reacted because of previous incidents and the reason why his two friends were filming was because there had been two previous incidents and wanted to show this was not fair.”

Ms Mathias said that Ramanathan threatened to punch the officer because after being asked to spell his name, he thought the police officer was “mocking his name and his Gods”.

Ramanathan was given a community order with 15 days rehabilitation activity requirement, 60 hours unpaid work, and was ordered to pay costs totalling £205.

For the motoring offence, he was given three points, and was given another community order for being in breach of a previous conditional discharge.