Man was punched and kicked unconscious on hard shoulder of the M62
A NEAR miss between two HGVs on the M62 motorway resulted in a confrontation on the hard shoulder and one man being punched and kicked unconscious in a serious incident of roadside rage.
Bradford[1] Crown Court heard how Charles Douglas violently faced off with another driver in what was described as a “red mist” moment.
But he avoided an immediate prison sentence after Mr Recorder Anthony Hawks took note of his previous good character as a respectable working man.
‘The red mist descended’
He said: “I regard this as a completely one-off piece of behaviour when, quite frankly, the red mist just simply descended on you.”
Prosecutor Laura McBride said a tanker driver was travelling on the inside lane of the M62 westbound, in the Calderdale area, when he was overtaken by a wagon and trailer.
There followed what was described as “an incident on the road” which prompted Douglas, driving the wagon, to pull in front of the tanker and force it onto the hard shoulder.
Douglas then stopped his vehicle, got out, approached the other driver who had climbed out of his tanker, and called him “a c***” before punching him twice to the head.
Douglas then tackled him to the ground causing the victim to crack both his shoulder and his head on the hard shoulder of the motorway.
He then kicked the other man whilst he was on the ground, which knocked him unconscious.
Victim felt incident ‘ruined his entire life’
The victim was left with a gash to the back of the head, a black eye, and a burst nose. He was taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary where an x-ray could not prove conclusively that his nose was broken.
In the weeks following the incident on September 27 last year, the victim continued to experience headaches to the back of his head and pains to the face, suffered from anxiety-related symptoms and poor sleep, sensitivity to light, and vomiting.
The court heard that he had been signed off sick as a result of mental health issues and diagnosed with PTSD.
In a statement, he said he felt the incident had “ruined his entire life”.
He has since lost his job.
When interviewed on the day of the attack Douglas answered “no comment” to questions. He later pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Mitigating, Erin Kitson-Parker said 53-year-old Douglas, an HGV driver since the age of 18, had never punched anyone before and was “hugely embarrassed and remorseful”.
She added: “Mr Douglas knows that whatever happened before [with] HGV drivers being angry with each other on the road did not warrant the violence [that followed].”
She said he “saw red” but rang the police and the ambulance and waited at the scene.
‘You’re lucky he wasn’t knocked into the carriageway and killed’
Addressing Douglas, Mr Hawks said: “There was a near miss between you and another lorry. I am not particularly concerned with who was at fault.
“It’s bad enough because of someone’s inattention or bad driving that there’s nearly a serious accident.
“But when it’s compounded by both large lorries ending upon the hard shoulder and you attacking the driver of the other vehicle to the extent that he’s knocked down on the hard shoulder when vehicles must have been thundering past, it beggars belief.
“I don’t know what came over you.
“You’re lucky he wasn’t knocked into the carriageway and killed. He might have been. Then you’d be facing a charge of manslaughter and looking at going to prison for about 15 years.
“It seems to me that there is little point in trying to unravel the driving that preceded this.
“But you know that when two vehicles stop after some alleged bad driving and the occupants get out that it rarely ends well.
“And where it’s ended for you is you sitting in the dock at the crown court narrowly avoiding going to prison. You ought to be absolutely ashamed of yourself.”
He sentenced Douglas, of Bridge Farm, Scawett Lane, Epworth, North Lincolnshire, to 18 months imprisonment suspended for 18 months, and ordered him to undertake 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days to reflect on his behaviour.
Douglas was also ordered to pay £150 costs.
Mr Hawks concluded: “Given the issues here if [the victim] wishes to sue this man he is perfectly entitled to do so.”