OPEN TO ABUSE
NO RIGHTS FOR ZERO HOURS WORKERS
His wife, Carol, told the court that, prior to the incident, there was a group of children outside their house shouting and swearing for 10 minutes, calling them horrible names such as “Scottish illegal immigrants”.
After her husband and brother chased them away, she said Harrison, who she described as having a bodybuilder physique, arrived.
She said: “My husband came out of the kitchen – he’s 22 stone with shorts and flip-flops on - and he (Harrison) knocked him clean out.
“My husband didn’t say anything, he just walked up to him and with one punch knocked him out.
“He (Harrison) was aggressive, you could tell he is a bodybuilder.
“He smacked him straight in the face. He had a large lump to the back of his head and blood was on the path.
“I was in a state of panic. It takes some sort of punch to knock out a 22-stone man.
“My friend lost her 22-year-old son to one punch, and that made me more upset than anything.”
Mr Tominay’s brother-in-law, Ian Martin, described Harrison as “pumped-up and aggressive.”
Harrison, of Wellhouse Lane, in Mirfield, admitted from the outset that he assaulted Mr Tominay, but claimed he believed the victim was going to attack him first.
The gas engineer said his son called him to say a man had hit him with a bottle and he drove a mile from his house in his work van to confront him.
He said: “I panicked because I thought he’d been hit with a glass bottle. I wanted to get to the bottom of it, like any father would do. I wanted to see why this guy had hit my son.
“I just wanted to talk to him to see what had happened.”
Harrison claimed that Mr Tominay came towards him quickly, with his fists clenched and appeared aggressive.
He said he was scared that he was going to hit him, so he struck out first.
Harrison added: “I had no choice.
“I had to defend myself; I felt threatened.”
Prosecutor Jess Lister said that Harrison made no attempt to speak with the victim and went round with the sole purpose of hitting him with full force.
District Judge David Scanlon said there was no evidence there was a credible threat of immediate violence posed towards Harrison.
He told him: “It’s a very serious allegation.
“Any unprovoked use of violence could have ended in more serious consequences for you, especially for the person at the wrong end of the full force punch.”
He said he needed a full probation report before sentencing Harrison on November 13.
Unconditional bail was granted.
Thousands of people across the North West are on a zero hours contract.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that there are now around 69,000 people on these types of contracts.
While that’s down from 77,000 people in 2018, it indicates around one in every 50 workers in the region is currently on a zero hours contract, which means the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours, while the worker is not obliged to accept any work.
For many, these contracts provide a degree of flexibility that can allow them to juggle work with other obligations, such as childcare or university. However, the rising gig economy is also leaving many people insecure in their work and uncertain of their monthly wage.
Nationally, 27% of people on a zero hours contract would like to work more hours than they do – nearly four times as many as the 7% of people on other types of contract.