A solicitor headbutted a fellow rugby coach after a referee missed a supposed foul on his son.
Gavin Dowell’s pitchside attack left his friend Mark Scoble unconscious and needing six eye operations.
But the 50-year-old father of five yesterday narrowly avoided prison. Instead he was given a suspended sentence and told to pay his victim £10,000 in compensation. The incident took place during an Old Bristolians under-16 match.
Dowell claims his son was assaulted on the pitch and he appealed to the referee to take action. He lost his temper when the official replied: ‘I didn’t see it, therefore I can’t do anything about it.’ Mr Scoble tried to calm him down and stood between the two men, said Giles Nelson, prosecuting.
Dowell said to his fellow coach ‘Do you want some too?’ before launching himself at his head. ‘Mr Scoble was knocked unconscious and was taken to Bath Royal Hospital where he was treated for a broken nose,’ said Mr Nelson. ‘The swelling on his eye was so bad it was completely closed.’
The resultant detached retina required a series of operations and Mr Scoble still suffers bad headaches and nausea almost two years after the attack, which took place in October 2014.
In a statement read to Taunton Crown Court, Mr Scoble said: ‘I have struggled to sleep and eat which has only recently started to return. My relationship with my wife and family has been affected.
‘I have become depressed, moody, agitated, had a loss of sense of humour and generally become the opposite of what I am.
‘The impact of Gavin assaulting me may well last for the rest of my life.’
Dowell, formerly of Redland, Bristol, had pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm in an earlier hearing at Gloucester Crown Court.
Handing him a two-year suspended prison sentence and a 300-hour community service order, Judge David Ticehurst said: ‘It was a deliberate, premeditated act of violence. In my judgement expressions of regret on your part are for your own benefit. You were in a privileged position as a professional.
‘Other people have similar or even greater stresses in their lives than the ones you did – they do not commit serious assault. The impact on Mr Scoble’s life was life-changing for him. You could have walked away.
‘You could have accepted Mr Scoble’s attempts to defuse it rather than violently headbutting him as you did.’
Samuel Jones said in mitigation that Dowell had been under a lot of stress at the time of the incident.
‘His relationship with his former partner had come to an end,’ he said. ‘It was an extremely messy divorce which obviously took a financial strain.
‘Divorce proceedings came to an end with the incident. The stresses that that put on him were very real and very significant.’
The court heard that his ex-wife had been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease at the time of the match and his father was battling cancer. Mr Jones added: ‘These actions are entirely outside of the character of the man who appears before you.
‘He said it is the “single most shameful event of his adult life”. He is distraught.’
Dowell has received a lifetime ban from the rugby club. – Daily Mail