A CARELESS motorist who clipped a man with his car moments after assaulting him outside a Maryport convenience store has been sentenced.
Eric Harrison sat in another vehicle’s passenger seat while his wife visited the One Stop Shop at Victory Crescent on June 21.
He was initially met with some abuse from 41-year-old Neil Roy Collins, who also threatened to “smash his face in”, Carlisle Crown Court heard.
Collins lunged at Mr Harrison’s face and throat area through an open car window, but didn’t make contact. Mr Harrison opened the door which Collins then slammed repeatedly against his foot, causing pain, swelling and a cut.
CCTV captured that incident, and also Collins reversing his Volvo nearby a short time later, the vehicle clipping Mr Harrison’s arm.
Collins admitted careless driving and assaulting Mr Harrison by beating.
Brendan Burke, defending, said Collins‘s carelessness had amounted to “half a second to a second’s worth of inattention”, and spoke of a “long-running” history of trouble between the pair.
Passing sentence, Judge Nicholas Parker told Collins, of Fletcher Crescent, Maryport: “You lost your temper. You had absolutely no right to go up to his car and conduct yourself in the way that you did.” Of the careless driving, he added: “That was a very reckless and potentially dangerous manoeuvre.”
Collins, of Fletcher Crescent, Maryport, was fined £250 and given seven penalty points for the driving offence. An 18-month conditional discharge was imposed for the assault. Collins must pay the victim £250 compensation and was banned from contacting him for two years.
