A MAN who launched a “ferocious” attack on a teenage garage apprentice due to a disagreement over a wheel fitted to his ex-partner’s car has been jailed for 18 months.

Bradford Crown Court heard that the “red mist” had descended on Liam Lalu, 26, when he went to the garage in Brighouse last year.

Prosecutor Paul Nicholson said Lalu and another man had turned up at the business after a wheel had been fitted to his former partner’s car earlier that day.

He burst in shouting: “Who did the tyre on the Astra?”, and when the 17 year-old apprentice said it had been him, Lalu “went for him”.

The court heard that the defendant grabbed the youth, punching him to the face before headbutting him. He was pinned to a car before being knocked to the floor, where Lalu continued to kick and stamp on him wearing his work boots.

As the garage owner tried to intervene, Lalu and the other man then turned on him, hitting him repeatedly.

The teenager said he had been hit “in excess of ten times” during the minute-long attack, and was “starting to lose consciousness” before his boss stepped in.

He suffered a broken left forearm and bruising to his ribs, shoulder, and legs.

Lalu was known by staff at the garage, and later arrested by police. He pleaded guilty to offences of causing grievous bodily harm and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Ian Hudson, mitigating for Lalu, of Heysham Drive, Holme Wood, Bradford, described his client’s actions as an “unpleasant and unjustified attack”, but said the defendant was “not a man of violence.”

He said that father-of-two Lalu was “stressed” at the time of the offence due to work and relationship problems, and felt that an incorrect tyre had been put on the car.

Mr Hudson said: “He has gone round there in a fit of rage, clearly seeing red.”

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, said of the attack on the teenager: “You set about him. A minute might not seem a long time, but this was a sustained outpouring of anger and violence. You then turned your attention to the owner and gave him, verbally and physically, a seeing to.

“This court does not know what got into you. I can’t overlook this, you know that. You went unbelievably, ferociously, for these people. Mr Lalu, please think before you act next time.”

Lalu received credit for his early guilty pleas, and the delay in the case coming before the courts, which Judge Durham Hall said was partly caused by the defendant being dealt with by way of a postal requisition.