A RETIRED police officer has been convicted of punching a dad outside a children’s nursery.
Alan Weedon, 66, hit Kevin Vance after becoming enraged when he believed Mrs Vance’s wife Nicola called him a paedophile.
The bad blood between them stemmed from Weedon being fed up of the way people were parking outside Rowlands Castle Parish Hall, which is next to his house, in Links Lane, which is a Montessori Nursery.
He had spent a year gathering evidence to give to the county council about what he saw as dangerous parking.
In September Mr and Mrs Vance, along with other parents, became concerned over what they thought was a camera in the window of Weedon’s house, filming the parents parking.
Mr Vance told Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court that he knocked on the door and requested Weedon’s wife Joan take the camera down. Mrs Weedon told the court there was no camera and claimed Mr Vance was aggressive.
Mrs Weedon called police but no further action was taken against either party and no video camera was found.
Mrs Weedon said the ‘video camera’ was an ornamental old-fashioned telephone.
Just after 9am on October 23, Weedon and his wife were taking their dog for a walk when they spotted Mrs Vance getting into her car after dropping her child off at nursery.
Mrs Vance told the court: ‘As I got to the car I noticed Weedon standing next to me. He said: “If I get any more trouble from this lot I’m going to get the big fellows down”.’
Her husband tried to get out of the vehicle – which was parked close to the wall of the nursery – and as he did Weedon walked round to the front. Mr Vance said: ‘As I’m trying to get out the car – the door was about a foot open – he came round the front saying lots of things like “I’m going to have your legs broken, you’re going to be killed, I know all the big boys”.’
Mr Vance said the next thing he knew Weedon had punched him in the jaw.
‘I was stunned,’ said Mr Vance. ‘There was a lot of commotion, people pushing him away.’
Weedon, who was a Metropolitan police officer for 16 years, claimed he only reacted to Mrs Vance calling him a paedophile and Mr Vance hit him twice in the face.
He said it would have been impossible for him to have hit Mr Vance because he was left disabled in his right hand after being hit by a truck in the 1970s and was medically retired from the force. His defence was rejected by magistrates.
The grandfather of nine was found guilty of assault but not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He will be sentenced on March 18.