Bookie cleared in Knaresborough car row case
York Crown Court
A Green Hammerton bookie was cleared by a jury on Wednesday, October 17 of dangerous driving.
Lee David Mattocks, 39, of Boroughbridge Road, was alleged to have twice caused his car to reverse into a Knaresborough businessman on October 7, last year.
However, Mattocks, a racecourse-based bookmaker told York Crown Court that he had never reversed into baker Robert Fallow during the incident in Hilton Lane.
He told the jury that he had stopped after hearing Mr Fallow shout, never reversed and remained locked inside his car, fearing that he might be a target of a robbery.
He told the jury that he had just visited a bank to pick up a £3,500 float for a day at York Races when he heard the shout and was then confronted by Mr Fallow leaning with his full body weight against his driver’s door window.
He said that it recent years several bookmakers had been robbed and it was one of the thoughts going through his mind.
The court heard that Mattocks claimed to have had a passenger at the time of the incident, although no one else saw one, and the man he named later refused to give a statement to the police.
Denying a suggestion from Chloe Fairley, prosecuting, that he had made up the witness in an attempt to get off the charge, Mattock said that he had been driving at under 15mph when Mr Fallow first attempted to step out in front of the car ahead of his and then his own.
Mr Fallow told the court that he had shouted “whoa” after being almost hit by Mattock’s BMW car.
He said that the car stopped and then rolled back into him, before again being reversed at him.
Susan Dearlove, a receptionist at the Cliff House day care centre where Mr Fallow had just dropped off his elderly mother before the alleged incident, told the court that she 100 per cent recalled the reversing lights of Mattock’s car coming on.
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Monday 20 May 2013
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