BBC star facing jail after driving his 7.5-tonne tractor into GP’s car during road rage row
AN AWARD-WINNING farmer who starred in a BBC show is facing prison after ramming a family GP’s car with his tractor in a road rage row.
Andrew Hollinshead, 54, ploughed his seven-and-a-half-ton vehicle into Dr Paul Uglow's VW Tiguan after earlier “cutting him up'' at a junction.
The pair accused each other of giving angry V-signs before Dr Uglow, 48, followed Hollinshead back to his Cheshire farmyard where the farmer drove the tractor at him and smashed into the side of his car.
The Volkswagen suffered damage worth £13,000 while glass from the driver's side window shattered, causing a four-inch cut to the doctor’s arm, prosecutors said.
Parish councillor Hollinshead featured on a BBC regional programme after being named Green Farmer of the Year at the Northern Farmer Awards in 2016.
But he has now been convicted of criminal damage and assault occasioning actual bodily harm by Crewe magistrates, and could face up to four years in prison if sentencing is sent to a crown court.
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The confrontation came at Hollinshead’s farmyard in Arclid near Sandbach last June 11, when Dr Uglow was driving home from his surgery near Crewe.
The court was played a 999 call in which Dr Uglow was heard to say he was “shaking like a leaf” while describing the tractor driver as “an absolute animal”.
Dr Uglow told magistrates: ''I saw Mr Hollinshead’s green tractor pulling out of a driveway on the right and I sounded my horn to warn him of my presence.
"But he continued to come across the road and I had to swerve hard to my left to avoid a collision with him.
"By the time I stopped the tractor had completed his manoeuvre and I could see the driver remonstrating, saying what I understood to be obscenities.
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"He was saying ‘F*** off?’, ‘You are a w*****’, ‘P**s off.’ I read his lips.
";There were some more obscenities and hand-waving. There were some V-signs and he drove off in the same direction as I was heading home."
Describing the incident at Hollinshead's farm, Dr Uglow added: “There is no communication.
"I could not even think about getting out and speaking to him and saying, ‘Let’s sort this out.’ He drove straight into me."
Hollinshead insisted it was the doctor who had been "waving his arms around, sticking his fingers up, wound up like an absolute bottle of pop - he was in a total rage".
He accused Dr Uglow of “coming at speed” and failing to slow down, telling the court: “All I’m doing is driving out of a gate as I have been doing for the last 40 years.”
But magistrate Frances Miller told him: “We accept the evidence of Dr Uglow.
“We thought his evidence was clear and concise and consistent when he was cross-examined.”
