A millionaire businessman and property developer has admitted attacking a retired Lloyd’s insurance broker in the driveway of the pensioner’s home in affluent Battersea, London.
Iain Catleugh Hutchinson, 51, who owns clockmaker Dent – the company which built the original chimes for Big Ben – was caught on CCTV punching 66-year old Jeremy Lyons at least six times and pushing him to the ground in a road rage related incident,
Evening Standard reported.
Lyons, who worked as a reinsurer for Lloyd’s for 25 years, told the
Standard that the attack left him in agony and unable to walk for two weeks, and that he was at a loss for a motive for the attack.
A court heard that Hutchinson, who lives in a £3 million riverside penthouse in Battersea, was walking near his home when he stepped out in front of Lyons’s car as he turned into his gated estate on May 29.
Jackie Hughes, prosecuting, said that Hutchinson and Lyons looked at each other for a few seconds, before Lyons saw the defendant mouth a profanity.
CCTV footage from Lyons’ home shows Hutchinson then confront the retired broker as he leaves his car, grabbing him by the hand and throwing a number of punches as the pensioner runs around the parked car in an attempt to escape the attack.
Hutchinson, who pleaded guilty to causing actual bodily harm, told the court that he admits to dragging Lyons to the ground, causing injuries, but claimed that none of his punches connected.
Lyons drove himself to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital at 3am the following morning and has received injections for back spasms since the assault, the
Standard reported.
He told police: “The incident left me shocked and scared. I have been attacked in my front garden and now I’m worried about going out of my house in case he is there again.”
Lyons added that Hutchinson continued the attack even when he told him that he had a bad back.
District Judge James
Henderson described the events as a “sustained attack on a victim in his own front garden.”
Hutchinson has been banned by the police from entering Whistlers Avenue, interfering with witnesses or otherwise obstructing justice.
He will be sentenced at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court at a date to be set.
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