Man beaten with metal bar at car wash then offered £5,000 to keep quiet

A member of staff at a car wash was beaten about the head with a metal bar by a colleague and left unconscious on the ground in a pool of blood, a court has heard. Amarildo Pasha then offered the injured man £5,000 not to report the matter to police while other men working at the garage hid the weapon used in the assault.

Swansea Crown Court heard the attack was witnessed by customers at the car wash as well as passing motorists on one of Swansea’s busiest roads and a child sat in the victim’s car. Pasha’s barrister told the court her 29-year-old client regretted his loss of control.

Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said the assault happened at the Sparkling Hands car wash garage in Fabian Way in Swansea. He said both Pasha and the complainant, Noureddine Nehhal, worked at the garage and there appeared to be some kind of “issue” between the men relating to the business – though he said whatever that issue was “it could in no way justify” what happened on April 22 this year.

He said that on that day Pasha rang Mr Nehhal and asked him to attend the garage and when the victim arrived a discussion took place between them which “quickly got out of hand”. He said as Mr Nehhal walked back to his car the defendant emerged from the workshop with a metal crash bar which he raised above his head before striking his victim to the top of his head “with force”.

The victim went to the floor but was able to raise his arms to parry a second blow and then got to his feet and “jumped over the bonnet of his car” to try to escape his attacker. The court heard a heavily-bleeding Mr Nehhal then collapsed face down on the forecourt and lost consciousness.

The prosecutor said the assault was witnessed by other members of staff at the garage, customers of the car wash, motorists in Fabian Way, and by a child who was in Mr Nehhal’s car. He said one witness, seeing Mr Nehhal laying face down on the floor in a pool of blood, “feared the worst”. Another witness would later report that nobody at the garage was trying to help the injured man or calling for an ambulance. For the latest court reports, sign up to our crime newsletter here

The court heard Pasha then started trying to manhandle the injured man back into his car while washing the blood off his head and offering him £5,000 not to report the matter to police and not to give officers his name. While this was happening other members of staff at the car wash picked up the crash bar and put it back in the garage. The court heard a witness who saw Pasha washing blood from his victim concluded it was more about trying to minimise the look of the injury than about any attempt to assist. Meanwhile the boy in Mr Nehhal’s car had called his mother on the phone and then flagged down a passing police vehicle.

Mr Scapens said that when police spoke to the staff at the car wash they all “stayed perfectly silent and did not give an account of any kind as to what had happened”. He said no CCTV footage from the garage had ever been provided to the police and that while the incident had been captured on other CCTV cameras in the area they had been some distance away.

Meanwhile, the victim had been taken by ambulance to hospital where a CT scan revealed no bone or internal injuries and his exterior wounds were cleaned and glued shut. The defendant answered “no comment” to all questions asked in his subsequent interview. The court heard there was no victim impact statement from Mr Nehhal but that in his original statement to police he said he thought Pasha was dangerous and he was concerned he would come after him and would kill him.

Amarildo Pasha, of Meadow Road, Dagenham, London, had previously pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has one pervious conviction for one offence, namely the possession of cannabis from 2022. Jenny Yeo, for Pasha, said the defendant had invested some £3,000 in the Fabian Way car wash and was paying £700-a-month in rent, and said the stress of the business – which was not doing well – combined with the fact his wife had been just days away from giving birth had led to a loss of control which “he regrets enormously”.

She said the defendant no longer had any interest in the Swansea business and lived in London with his wife and two children, and she said a sentence of immediate custody would likely lead to the loss of the family home.

Judge Catherine Richards said it was fortunate that the injuries suffered by the complainant had not been as bad as was initially feared and in the end had required “limited treatment”. She said the offence was aggravated by the fact the defendant had offered the complainant money not to tell the police and by the fact steps had been taken to hide the weapon used.

The judge said the appropriate sentence on the guidelines after a trial would have been one of 27 months – with a discount for Pasha’s guilty plea that was reduced to 20 months and was suspended for 24 months. The defendant was also ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and to pay his victim £1,800 compensation

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