Couple walking dogs beaten over car row
A COUPLE out walking their dogs were subjected to a shocking attack for asking a driver to be careful when he nearly reversed into one of their pets.
Attacker Matthew Darling had just come out of the Barking Dog social club, in Wallsend, and got in a car with friends, when the victims and their three dogs crossed paths with them.
The car Darling was a passenger in reversed out of its parking space and nearly hit one of the dogs, prompting the woman to knock on the bonnet and tell the driver to be careful.
That sparked a violent reaction from Darling, which ended with the woman being knocked unconscious and her partner in a critical care unit in hospital having seizures due to a head injury.
Alec Burns, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court it was on October 5 2019 that Darling got out of the car, irate and shouting they were nowhere near the dogs.
Another man got out of the car and tried to stop Darling abusing
the couple but still he persisted and resisted attempts to pull him back into the car.
He then reached for something inside the car to use as a weapon and struck the man on the head with it.
After calling for reinforcements from within the club, Philip Croney then came out and also punched the man to the head.
Darling then punched the woman in the face, knocking her to the ground, unconscious. He then hit her partner twice more to the head before getting in the car and fleeing.
The male vicitm suffered a significant cut to the skin and soft tissue on his head and had two seizures at accident and emergency and was taken to the critical care ward.
He also had soreness to various parts of his body, including his chest, abdomen, wrist and shoulder.
His partner was left with two black eyes and a broken nose.
Darling, 28, of Sydney Grove,
Wallsend, who has six previous convictions, pleaded guilty to inflicting GBH and actual bodily harm and was jailed for 25 months.
Croney, 32, of Moor Drive, Benton Rise, Wallsend, who has six previous convictions, including violent disorder in 2011 and battery last year, admitted a public order offence.
He was sentenced to four months suspended for 12 months with 100 hours unpaid work and an alcohol abstinence monitoring requirement for 90 days.
Sentencing them, Judge Amanda Rippon told Darling: “A car you were in but not driving reversed close to a couple walking their dogs, the car came dangerously close to them.
“That resulted, only minutes later in the female lying unconscious on the floor with a broken nose and black eyes and Mr Fairley having been hit by you, falling down due to a head wound that required stitches and which led to hospital where he had two seizures, which had not happened before.”
The judge rejected claims in references that Croney is an “upstanding member of the community”, telling him: “You are a violent man and if you are not careful, someone in an outfit like this is going to lock you up for a long time.”