8:32 am, March 30, 2023
The managing director of a used car dealership suffered ‘a traumatic head injury’ when he was attacked by an angry customer.
The boss of Fort Used Car Centre in Birmingham had been trying to move Wayne Brown’s faulty Mini because it was causing an obstruction, reported BirminghamLive.
But Brown, who had returned it to the Bromford Lane business 10 days after his partner bought it in February 2021 and wanted immediate action after being told the garage would collect it and there was a two-week no returns policy, flew into a rage when the MD tried to move the car, which was blocking the way in and out.
The newspaper didn’t give the dealership boss’s name, but according to LinkedIn it is Mark Hunt. He wanted the Mini moved but Brown, of Church Lane, Stechford, and his partner refused to do so, prosecutor Fiona Cortese told the city’s crown court.
The boss of the second-hand car company then ‘took it upon himself’ to shift the car and got in to release the hand brake while still having a leg outside the Mini.
He then felt a heavy blow on the side of his face before being dragged out by Brown, said BirminghamLive. Despite trying to evade Brown, he was pushed by the 38-year-old and ended up falling against another car, banging his head in the process.
Cortese told the court it was understood the boss’s phone could have been inside the car and that a colleague attempted to stop Brown from leaving by putting their hands on the bonnet.
The MD’s injuries included a graze, a cut above an eyebrow, plus what was described as ‘a traumatic head injury’.
Recorder Richard Oakes was reported as saying he accepted that Brown hadn’t given the MD permission to get into the Mini and that he was also worried as his children were in the car.
‘You drove towards him causing him to move backwards two or three steps. It is incredibly fortunate that he was not hurt,’ he was quoted as saying.
‘It appears that this offence was out of character for you. In my view, you let your temper get the better of you. You were in a stressful situation. You let yourself and your family down.’
In mitigation, barrister Laura Coton told the court Brown hadn’t got anywhere trying to sort the matter over the phone and felt he’d been unfairly treated, reported BirminghamLive.
She was quoted as saying that he felt intimidated as the showroom manager had been ‘in his face’.
Coton added that Brown had suffered a trauma as a child, and since his children were in the car when the MD got into it, it had acted as a ‘trigger’.
She said: ‘He is embarrassed about what happened and extremely ashamed.’
Brown admitted assault at an earlier hearing and was given an 18-month community order, told to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 compensation plus £250 costs.
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