Telford car wash worker attacked BMW driver with his mop
A Telford car wash worker attacked a man through the window of his BMW, hitting his face with a mop and showering the inside of his car with water, a court was told.
Rebaz Babaker launched the assault at the Arc car wash on the Wrekin Retail Park after a row about race, said Ms Harminder Hayre, prosecuting.
The assault victim, of Pakistani origin, told the court that Babaker, a Kurd, had refused to clean his BMW and claimed he was only cleaning white people's cars.
Ms Hayre, said Babaker had swung two punches through the window before ordering the car out of the queue.
Babaker had then walked over to the vehicle, pulled open the passenger seat and leaned across, hitting the driver in the face with his mop, said Ms Hayre.
Giving evidence, the victim spoke of his shock at the attack and the distress it had caused his young son, who had been in the passenger seat at the time.
Babaker was found guilty of assault by beating by magistrates in Telford at his trial yesterday, but the bench rejected claims that the attack had been racially motivated.
The bench concluded that the assault had been aggravated by the fact that the victim's five-year-old son had been present in the car at the time of the attack, which took place on January 10.
Babaker, of Riven Road, Hadley, was given a £180 fine and ordered to pay £400 court costs, a £20 victim surcharge and £100 compensation.
Babaker, who had no legal representation but who used an interpreter in court, accepted that a row had taken place but said it was because the victim had refused to pay the full cost of cleaning services that he was asking for.
He claimed he had reached into the car to point to the child while explaining that they should not be arguing in front of the boy.
When shown pictures of the victim's injuries which he had taken himself 30 minutes after the incident, Babaker denied that he had been the cause.
Ms Hayre questioned whether Babaker had the English skills to enter into such a conversation, after a police officer gave evidence describing the defendant's English as poor.
The defendant said that he and other workers at the car wash were tested for basic vocabulary before they were employed.
He said that in six years of working at the car wash he had never had a problem with a customer and that following the incident his employers had kept him on.
