I knew you were after her!
What jealous NHS boss yelled before head-butting England football star who’s now going out with his former girlfriend
An NHS executive who saw his ex-girlfriend out shopping with former England footballer Tony Dorigo flew into a jealous rage and butted his rival in the face.
Gareth Senior lost his temper when he spotted the pair together in a branch of upmarket homeware shop The White Company.
‘I knew you were after her!’ he yelled before pushing Mr Dorigo, 52, into a towels display and head-butting him.
‘I managed to move back or else my nose would have been broken,’ the victim told Leeds magistrates this week.
‘He caught me on my nose and top of the lip... there was a bit of blood inside my lip.’ Senior, 48, the corporate head of IT at an NHS HQ in Leeds, was then ‘clouted’ twice by his ex, Claire Joss.
In court he was convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm. He was spared jail but may now lose his job. The court heard that Senior was a fan of Leeds United and Mr Dorigo had been a hero of his while playing for the side during the 1990s.
In 2016 Senior began a relationship with Claire Joss after meeting her at work and when they met Mr Dorigo at a music festival he introduced her to his idol.
But things went downhill in their relationship soon afterwards and they broke up before Christmas last year. Senior suspected she had been seeing Mr Dorigo after comments made by friends. Recalling the head-butting incident in court, Mr Dorigo – now a media sports pundit – said: ‘I was looking at the towels at the back of the shop. The next thing I heard some shouting and I felt an excessive shove from behind.’
He fell forward about four or five feet after being shoved in the back by Senior. ‘He was swearing and saying all sorts of things. I didn’t really catch it all,’ he said.
‘He just head-butted me. I didn’t really know what was going on and it was all a bit of a shock.’ Mr Dorigo said his eyes began to water after the impact and he was sore for a few days. Miss Joss told the court she was returning an item at the till when she heard shouting.
She said: ‘Gareth was shouting over the top of me. Words to the effect of he was going to kill Tony.
‘Something along the lines of “I knew you were after her.” ’
She put herself in between Mr Dorigo and her former partner in an attempt to stop the violence then ‘clouted’ her ex twice as he stood at the top of the stairs after the attack. She said he continued to shout threats outside the premises inside the Victoria Gate shopping centre in Leeds.
‘We were stood outside of the main door. At that point he said it wasn’t over and he was going to break his legs,’ she added.
‘He was clearly angry and saying other things. I got the attention of the security guards.’
Deputy District Judge Paul Currer told Senior: ‘I am very sorry to see a man of your previous good character and good standing coming before the court in circumstances such as this. This represents something of a personal crisis that you went through in the last couple of years.’
Senior, of Leeds, was fined £500 with £100 compensation to Mr Dorigo plus £300 court costs.
The Australian- born player appeared 171 times for Leeds from 1991 to 1997. He was capped for England 15 times, making his debut in 1989. He also played for Aston Villa, Chelsea, Torino, Derby County and Stoke City.
‘He said he was going to break Tony’s legs’