I live a few hundred yards away from this incident and know the farmer very well, he's a good man for sure. What Ben says above is absolutely correct and there is far more to this than is reported in the press. There had been gangs of drunken yobs tearing about up this normally quiet road all day, chasing each other in fast cars, wrecking walls lighting fires on private property....etc etc. No sign whatsoever of any police despite several calls from farms about the madness going on in this quiet rural location. They were acting like maniacs, we all saw it.Ben@Forest wrote: ↑6 Feb 2022, 7:42am It has to be said that the area where the incident occurred is often busy, but mainly in a 'walkers and sightseers' way. When this incident happened it had been turned into 'Costa Del Tees' with BBQs and boozy parties. So many cars were parked along the road that the council came to paint emergency double yellow lines along it. It's a pretty small B-road but is important for locals for whom it's the only road in and out and at least once it actually got blocked by parked vehicles. Visitors also left tonnes of rubbish and there was casual vandalism. Visitors do frequently park in front of, or by, farmers' gates here, which means farm vehicles can't turn in or out. Double puncture or not he should not have parked his car where he did without permission.
They completely blocked his access road to the farm on a busy day when he was in and out of that only entrance during hay time, he politely asked them to move it so he could get in and out with his tractor/trailer and got thumped by a drunken yob in response. It looks very much like they intended to abandon the car there. Was he meant to wait until either the police turned up (unlikely from past history) or just abandon work for the day. It got out of hand when he moved the car which he did quickly and recklessly to avoid getting beaten up while doing it hence the mess he made of it. He was also frightened.
The jury made the right decision when they had all the facts which were unreported in the press.