"He could have killed me...": Thug drove car at man in the midst of road rage row

A thug drove his car at a man and hit him after a road rage row. Zak Allinson, 22, had become embroiled in a heated argument with his victim following a dispute on a trading estate in Cheetham Hill.

Allinson, who said he was there to buy food from a takeaway, had blocked a lorry which was trying to drive into the yard. After the victim closed part of a gate, Allinson drove directly at the man and hit him.

He was thrown onto the bonnet and fell to the ground shortly after. ‘He could have killed me,” the victim later said in a statement.

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Manchester Crown Court heard that the victim had attended Sherborne Street trading estate to visit his friend on July 9 last year. Before he arrived, his pal had been trying to park a lorry in the yard but Allinson’s car was in the way.

The man got out of the car and soon after heard swearing being directed at him. Three men were in the car, one being Allinson.

He noticed the three men were using nitrous oxide balloons, prosecutor Eleanor Gleeson said. One of them said ‘I’m going to crack your head open if you don’t move’, the court heard. Allinson ‘repeatedly’ said ‘I’m here for trap kitchen’.

When the victim arrived, he observed that the three men appeared ‘very irate’ and were acting in an ‘intimidating’ way. The victim went over to a double gate and closed the left side to prevent more vehicles driving onto the yard.

He planned to close the right side when Allinson’s car had left. But Allinson moved the car towards the gate and ‘stopped just short of it’.

Allinson then got out of the car and looked at the victim in a ‘menacing’ way’. Ms Gleeson said: “He got back into the vehicle, reversed the vehicle around a foot or two and then drove directly at his victim.”

The man was hit on his legs and was thrown onto the bonnet, before falling off a few metres away. Allinson then fled. The victim suffered bruising and abrasions but did not suffer more serious injury.

“This appears to be an incident that developed out of a disagreement with where you had parked your vehicle, and the fact that you were blocking a lorry from parking in the yard,” Judge Elizabeth Nicholls told Allinson.

“It is plain this was a cold, calculated and intentional act on your part. You paid total disregard to the impact that your driving would have upon your victim.

“You could quite frankly have killed him. You had not a care in the world, the injuries you have inflicted on him. You used that vehicle as a weapon to attack this individual.”

Allinson was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison, after pleading guilty to attempted section 18 assault, dangerous driving, driving without a licence and driving without insurance. Defending, Ella Embleton said that Allinson, of Emscote Grove, Halifax, had experienced a troubled childhood and has been diagnosed with ADHD.