Father killed by a single punch from van driver who tracked him down after prang
A MOTORIST tracked down, punched and killed a drink-driver for ‘clipping’ his van in the street and then failing to stop, a court heard yesterday.
Oliver Brown, 21, struck father-of-two Stephen Walsh, 37, on his front doorstep following the minor latenight collision, ‘knocking him out cold’, jurors were told.
Minutes earlier Brown, a double glazing fitter, had been driving through a quiet residential area when his alleged victim, who was travelling in the opposite direction, veered into his path and clipped his van.
But Sarah Knight, prosecuting, said that instead of stopping at the scene to exchange details, construction site foreman Mr Walsh ‘simply carried on home’ and settled down with his fiancée Katie Brown to watch an episode of ITV reality show Love Island.
Meanwhile, a ‘pumped up and angry’ Brown drove around the streets until he found Mr Walsh’s white Lexus IS 300h FSport car parked on the drive of his detached house in Mapperley, Nottingham – just a few hundred yards where the collision had taken place, the city’s Crown court heard.
He then knocked on the door as his girlfriend, Roseann Newton, 21, took pictures of the Lexus.
Miss Knight said: ‘Oliver Brown remonstrated with [Mr Walsh] at the front door but it was then that [Mr Walsh] was struck hard to the face, knocking him to the ground. He was knocked out cold and unconscious.
‘The blow that Oliver Brown delivered and the impact it caused to Stephen Walsh’s head... resulted in fractures to his skull and jaw.
‘These would lead to a bleed on the brain that would kill him just a few hours later.’
Miss Knight added that Brown ‘instantly knew he had done far too much and had over-reacted’.
She said: ‘He tried to make amends by picking up Stephen Walsh under his arms and dragging him into the living room inside his home and parking him there on the sofa.’ After coming around, Mr Walsh eventually made his own way to bed, where his fiancée discovered his body early the next morning. She dialled 999 but Mr Walsh was pronounced dead by paramedics when they arrived a short time later.
A post- mortem examination found he died of a bleed on the brain caused by head injuries including a fractured skull and jaw. Brown handed himself in at a police station the day after Mr Walsh’s death and was charged with manslaughter, which he denies.
Newton, 21, appeared alongside him in the dock accused of assisting an offender after she allegedly deleted text messages relating to the case, and made a false statement to police.
Miss Knight told the court that on the night he was attacked, Mr Walsh had been driving home from a christening with Miss Brown. ‘He
‘He was knocked out cold and unconscious’
‘He wouldn’t let the situation lie’
had been drinking throughout the evening and should not have driven,’ she said.
Miss Brown was cross with him for doing this and had an argument with him at the time, but he insisted on driving them home.
She described how his Lexus ‘collided to a minor degree’ with Brown’s Vauxhall Astra van, causing a ‘small amount of damage to the wing mirror and nearside front of the van’. Miss Knight said he should have stopped and added: ‘Oliver Brown was angry that his vehicle had been clipped and was determined to track down the person who had done it.
‘He drove around the area to look for the car that had struck his. He found it.’
After the road rage attack Miss Brown – who was ‘still annoyed’ at Mr Walsh for drink driving – was oblivious to the fact that he was badly hurt. She dismissed the fact he was coughing because this was ‘normal for him when he had drunk too much’.
She got a towel so he could lie on the sofa and placed his head on a cushion, and eventually went to sleep in a spare room.
When Brown handed himself in to police the day after Mr Walsh’s death, he gave officers a prepared statement in which he denied being angry, claimed Mr Walsh had been ‘drunk and aggressive’, and had lunged at him – and said he acted in self- defence because he was scared.
Newton also told police Mr Walsh was aggressive, adding that Miss Brown had also been ‘lashing out’ at him with punches and kicks to the head, stomach and legs – a claim Miss Knight described as a ‘ vicious lie to try to deflect the blame for what really happened’.
Miss Knight said Brown, now of Ingoldmells, Lincolnshire, was ‘pumped up and angry’, and said analysis of Newton’s phone showed that two messages from her boyfriend sent minutes after the incident had been deleted.
One of Brown’s texts read, ‘I really hope he’s not brain damaged’, and the other read: ‘Anger got the better of me should of (sic) just pushed him.’
A reply from Newton said: ‘Like I keep saying, he deserved it.’ The next morning Newton, of Sneinton, Nottingham, sent a message to her best friend saying ‘we eventually found the guy, Oliver f******* knocked him clean out’.
Miss Knight said: ‘Roseann Newton was desperate to try to hide the truth and protect her boyfriend. She knows that Oliver Brown’s actions towards Stephen Walsh were carried out... in a fit of temper and it was her boyfriend who caused his death.
‘At no time in that short-lived incident did Oliver Brown act in self-defence. The evidence shows, we say, how he tracked down the driver of the Lexus.
‘He was pumped up and he was angry. He simply wouldn’t let the situation lie.’
The trial continues.