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Sunday World
25-06-2025
- Sunday World
Man jailed for punching driver and smashing her partner's car gets apology from cops
Paul Dunstan told us how he knew he had not acted properly but strongly believed he should not have been the only person before Ards Magistrates Court. Ulster's angriest driver Tammy Sparkes was battered by Ulster's craziest driver who freakishly happened to be her next door neighbour! Paul Lawrence Dunstan was jailed last week for seven months – but released to appeal – for ramming Stephen Eillotts car through a fence and repeatedly punching Tommy Sparkes in the face in April last year Lawrence 43-year-old, who ironically runs a car body repair business, was plastered when he got into his van and started repeatedly ramming Stephen Elliott's Peugeot 208 car – forcing it back over 30 yards through a corrugated iron fence and into the back garden of another house Tammy Sparkes with her partner Stephen Elliott speaking to reporter Steven Moore A man jailed for repeatedly punching 'Ulster's angriest driver' and ramming her partner's car through a fence got an apology from the police this week. As revealed by the Sunday World last week, Bangor man Paul Dunstan is only out on bail as he appeals his conviction and seven-month jail sentence for his part in the shocking incident in April last year. The 43-year-old of Drumglass Avenue went berserk after someone slashed the tyres of his van and scraped the side of the £40,000 vehicle. Footage was shown to the judge at Ards Magistrates Court which showed Dunstan – who ironically runs a car body repair business – repeatedly ramming Stephen Elliott's Peugeot 208 car, forcing it back over 30 yards through a corrugated iron fence and into the back garden of another house. Dunstan is seen in an altercation seconds later with neighbour Tammy Sparkes who went over to the van to remonstrate with him. During the tussle he's seen swinging and connecting with several punches on Sparkes, who has a string of road rage incidents against her name – some of which saw her physically attack other drivers and even a cop. Tammy Sparkes Last week as he launched his appeal at Downpatrick County Court, Paul Dunstan told us how he knew he had not acted properly but strongly believed he should not have been the only person before Ards Magistrates Court. Video footage of the whole 14-minute incident also showed Dunstan crumpling to the ground after he is repeatedly punched by Sparkes' partner Elliott, who told the court he was acting in self-defence and to protect his partner. Dunstan says it also shows him being attacked by both Elliott and Sparkes long after he had been knocked unconscious and was no longer any kind of threat. But he says what was even more shocking in the video footage is how several minutes after he has been knocked to the pavement – where he lies for several minutes – an unidentified man appears from a garden and kicks him full on in the head. The Sunday World asked the PSNI what investigation they carried out into that incident and whether they ever arrested anyone for the cowardly kick to Paul's head. They told us: 'As court proceedings are ongoing, it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time.' But Paul says a senior police officer also contacted him to apologise for not following up on his complaint about that incident. Paul Dunstan started repeatedly rammed Stephen Elliott's Peugeot 208 car. 'I got a call from a police officer on Wednesday night apologising to me and saying there had been a breakdown in communication,' said Dunstan yesterday. 'I found it hard to believe that it was a breakdown in communication because I was contacting them regularly to ask what was happening with my complaint about that night. 'I was assaulted repeatedly while I was unconscious but the police chose to focus on what I did wrong that night and only showed the judge a section of the video that showed me doing wrong. 'I was interviewed by police last June – two months afterwards – and after they watched the video they told me I was a victim of a serious assault but I heard nothing back. 'Instead I was charged and convicted of assault. After I was convicted in April I went straight to police station to ask about my assault claim but there was nobody available. 'A sergeant arrived later that night at my house with two other officers with three bodycams and viewed the footage with me and said they'd email the investigating officers sergeant. Paul Dunstan. News in 90 Seconds - June 24th 'I was contacted the next morning and sent a link to forward them the evidence once again – and I never heard a thing back until the other night. 'Sorry doesn't cut it – I'll be taking this to the Police Ombudsman now.' Paul has vowed to clear his name and said he had been discriminated against by the PSNI. 'I don't have a great relationship with the PSNI over the years but the video footage doesn't lie and the police have made a judgment because of that that they would rather just go for the easy prosecution of me than to look at the whole incident. 'They only showed the judge a blurry and shortened version of the video footage. With a new legal team I'm hoping I can get a judge to see the whole video footage.' Tammy Sparkes was dubbed the country's angriest driver earlier this year when she appeared in court to face her THIRD shocking road rage attack – none of which had anything to do with Dunstan. Those hat-trick of incidents saw the 29-year-old mum tear clumps of hair from a terrified woman, punch a police officer, repeatedly kick a car causing almost £2,000 worth of damage and grab a neighbour by the hair while driving her car – dragging the woman along. But last month she gave evidence as the victim of an attack by Paul who she lived next door to for three years in Loverock Close in Bangor. 'Look, I know what I did was very wrong,' said Dunstan on the steps of court last week. 'I shouldn't have rammed the car like that but I was under major stress at the time because both my parents had been in and out of hospital and I needed the van for work and to go to hospital.
Sunday World
07-06-2025
- Sunday World
Road rage driver punched after she confronted neighbour about his crazy driving
Tammy Sparkes appeared in court to face her THIRD shocking road rage attack earlier this year. Elliott's car after it was rammed off the road Ulster's angriest driver Tammy Sparkes was battered by Ulster's craziest driver who freakishly happened to be her next door neighbour! Tammy Sparkes was dubbed the country's angriest driver earlier this year when she appeared in court to face her THIRD shocking road rage attack. Those hat-trick of separate incidents saw the 29-year-old mum tear clumps of hair from a terrified woman, punch a police officer, repeatedly kick a car causing almost £2,000 worth of damage and grab a neighbour by the hair while driving her car — dragging the woman along. But Sparkes was the victim of a terrifying incident at the hands of Ulster's craziest driver after she confronted him for ramming her partner's car through a fence. Paul Lawrence Dunstan was jailed last week for seven months — but released to appeal — for a crazy rampage which saw him repeatedly punch Sparkes in the face in April last year before he himself was punched unconscious by a crowd who'd witnessed his insane driving. Tammy Sparkes with her partner Stephen Elliott speaking to reporter Steven Moore The 43-year-old, who ironically runs a car body repair business, was plastered when he got into his van and started repeatedly ramming Stephen Elliott's Peugeot 208 car — forcing it back over 30 yards through a corrugated iron fence and into the back garden of another house — just missing a man who was standing in the garden at the time. The pair lived beside each other for three years in Loverock Close in Bangor, though Dunstan has since moved out. Dunstan, who had 17 previous convictions, claimed he reacted after discovering someone had stabbed his tyres and keyed his car — something Tammy Sparkes and Stephen Elliott say had nothing to do with them. Speaking to the Sunday World this week, Tammy Sparkes said: 'It was around 9.30pm when I heard all this revving and screeching and went out to see Paul Dunstan reversing his big van into Stephen's car over and over again. 'He just kept going, the car alarm was going off, and the car was getting forced backwards towards this metal fence. 'He was out of his mind. When I went out he got out of his van he just sat down on the pavement and then he got up and started punching me repeatedly in the head. It was really scary. 'I had a black eye and a concussion as well as cuts and bruises.' Stephen Elliott's Peugeot 208 car These images show the damage caused to Mr Elliott's car, which had to be lifted from it's final resting place with a crane and was immediately written-off. 'I've had to find money for a new car,' says Stephen Elliott. 'I still had finance on the car he wrecked and the insurance didn't cover it all. Where's the compensation for that? 'All he got was seven months for battering Tammy and for ramming my car through a fence? And he has the cheek to appeal it?' Stephen says he admits he punched Dunstan when he came out and saw him attacking Tammy. 'I decked him, of course I did, what else could I do? But then some people came from over the fence from when he'd rammed my car into and they gave him a bad doing.' Court News NI reported how Dunstan, with an address listed as Drumglass Avenue in Bangor, committed offences at Loverock Close in Bangor where he had been living at the time. Dunstan had contested a charge of dangerous driving but his lawyer said the defendant was admitting careless driving. He was convicted at an earlier court sitting of charges of dangerous diving, assault, and failing to provide a breath sample. At the earlier sitting of Ards Magistrates' Court, footage of the incident had been shown to District Judge Peter Magill. Tammy Sparkes had told that court how she was in her home at Loverock Close when she heard revving, 'loads of screeching' and a car alarm going off. Tammy Sparkes and her partner Stephen Eillott News in 90 Seconds - 7th June She looked out the window and saw the defendant reversing his van into her partner's car. Judge Magill said the footage showed a Peugeot car being deliberately rammed several times by a reversing van 'until he pushed it through a fence into a garden'. The judge said the footage then showed a woman being repeatedly punched in the face before a man 'comes out and defends her'. Tammy Sparkes said she was 'concussed' and left with a black eye, cuts to her face, her nose was bleeding badly and she had bruises on her arm. The court was told after the car ended up in a garden of a property in the next street a number of people had assaulted Dunstan. Dunstan told the court his van had been 'keyed' and had two tyres 'stabbed'. He told the court: 'I suppose I lost the plot.' He said he thought he was pushing the car into a tree. Judge Magill had told the defendant at the earlier court: 'This was vigilantism. This was you taking the law into your own hands.' The defendant said after the reversing incident he was assaulted and was unconscious for a time. The judge said the footage clearly showed the defendant punching Tammy Sparkes repeatedly. The defendant said after going into his house he drank half a litre of vodka and took six co-codamol tablets. He claimed a 'shortness of breath' meant he was unable to give a breath sample, as a result of 'smoking and a fire I was involved in a long time ago'. He said he had been confused and didn't remember being asked for a sample of blood after he was taken to hospital. Judge Magill told the earlier court Dunstan had damaged his neighbour's car and he did so by 'repeatedly reversing his larger vehicle into it and it ended up in a garden, on the way damaging a hedge and a fence. 'It is obvious that he launched a determined assault upon the woman. He struck her multiple times with both fists to her head and face'. The judge said it was 'ludicrous' for the defendant to claim the driving had been careless driving as it was 'obviously dangerous driving' and convicted him of the charges. During sentencing this week a prosecutor said Dunstan was 'obviously intoxicated, he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes were bloodshot, he had some sort of altercation as his face was swollen and there was a cut on his forehead'. A defence barrister said the defendant runs a car body repair shop and the loss of his licence would impact on the business. She said the defendant said his vehicle had been 'attacked' and he reacted. He had 'acted in self-defence'. Judge Magill said it had been 'utterly appalling behaviour'. He jailed Dunstan for seven months and banned him from driving for two years as well as issuing a two-year restraining order. The defendant was given bail for appeal and is allowed to drive pending the outcome of the appeal. In March Tammy Sparkes was handed a three-month sentence, suspended for two years, as District Judge Peter Magill said her behaviour was 'utterly unacceptable' but spared her jail because of her child. He gave her a year to compensate her latest victim, whose car cost £1,868 to fix, warning that if she did not make a significant hole in the debt, she would go to jail. Last year, in an unrelated attack, she entered guilty pleas to six offences arising from a minor shunt including careless driving, causing actual bodily harm, causing criminal damage, using disorderly behaviour, assaulting a police officer and breaching a suspended jail sentence. The driver of a Jaguar, which Sparkes had driven into, told police how she pulled up at the junction but was struck by Sparkes' Audi. When they got out to swap insurance details, Sparkes 'began assaulting her by grabbing her by the hair and pulling out clumps of hair'. 'Officers at the scene looked down and could see a large clump of hair lying on the ground,' the court heard, adding that at the time Sparkes was subject to a suspended sentence imposed in a different court but for a similar offence. In July 2022 at Newtownards Magistrates Court, Sparkes was handed a four-month prison sentence suspended for three years along with a £400 compensation order after she entered guilty pleas to careless driving and causing actual bodily harm to a woman on May 6, 2021.
