A ROAD WORKER has been fired after spitting at a passerby in the street.
Edinburgh is notorious for its apparently endless roadworks and the gridlock they create.
But one frustrated resident who tried to document the upheaval got a disgusting response from a riled construction worker.
After a furious row, the workman climbed onto a lorry and spits at the cameraman – straight over a colleague working below.
Now the construction firm he works for has fired the worker – branding his behaviour “terrible” and “disgusting”.
The video of roadworks was taken on Raeburn Place in the capital’s upmarket Stockbridge neighbourhood on the afternoon of May 3.
As it opens cameraman retired John Wallace, 65, is filming the scene of the roadworks – which have dredged up one full side of the road.
Suddenly a worker on the truck can be seen to point at the camera, and run through the works to confront Mr Wallace.
The worker asks him: “What are you taking a photo of?”
Mr Wallace replies: “Sir, that’s none of your business.” The worker then tells him: “Well don’t take a photo of me when I’m up there, okay?”
Mr Wallace then reminds the man that the road is a public place, where photography is entirely legal – with the road worker still objecting to being included in the background of the photo.
Mr Wallace says: “I’m taking photographs of the road – you just happened to be there.”
Meanwhile the other workers can be seen getting on with repaving the street – which has been dug up to install fibre optic broadband.
Eventually the road worker calls him a “f** screwball”.
He eventually goes back to working on truck, and Mr Wallace returns to filming the scene.
But after one more moment the road worker is shouting at him again – knocking over a shovel and a broom and shouting: “I’ll ram it up your f** arse.”
Then the worker returns to the top of the truck where he was previously working.
But after a minute he can be seen spitting at Mr Wallace.
Describing the scene, Mr Wallace said: “I take different films and photographs of buildings being built and things like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0–EPTmJ0JE
“I was coming on to Raeburn Place, and I saw it and I started talking to the guy using the hammer thing before anything else.
“I asked him if it was waterpipe he was laying – and he said no it was fiber optics. I thought, ‘I’ll take a pic of whole thing.’”
“As I took it I pointed the camera down the way and this is when the guy started shouting. And he just jumped off and as in the video you can see him running towards me shouting.
“When he gets on the top he shouts again and then he pulls his head back, hocks and gives that spit.
“I could actually see it travelling, it was going through the air towards me – another three feet and he would have got me in my left eye.
“I just thought the guy has got something wrong with him to go in that state about it.”
The roadworks were being organised by Livingston construction firm C-Plan on behalf of a nationwide move to improve internet access led by London-based firm CityFibre.
A spokeswoman for the company said: “CityFibre has been made aware that a construction worker, engaged on-behalf of one of our sub-contractors in Edinburgh, was abusive to a member of the public.
“On investigation, it was discovered that immediately after the incident was reported, the worker who was supplied by an agency was dismissed from the project by the sub-contractor.
“CityFibre was disgusted to see the terrible behaviour of an individual working on our behalf and would like to apologise sincerely to the gentleman offended.”
