Footballer ‘used BMW as a weapon to run over children after losing 5-0’

A football player used his car as a weapon to run over rival supporters – some as young as 14 – because they had taunted him for losing 5-0, a court has heard.

Lee Taylor, 36, allegedly ploughed his BMW into a group of teenagers at the game in Bridgend, South Wales, throwing some into the air.

Newport Crown Court heard 11 young people were left with cuts and bruising after the incident in the car park at Cornelly United’s ground.

Prosecutor Christopher Rees said Taylor, who was playing for Cornelly’s rivals Margam Football Club, had exchanged words with a group of teenage boys after leaving the changing room on the evening of April 19 last year.

Taylor allegedly said to one boy: ‘You wanna go?’ before getting in his grey BMW, revving its engine and accelerating 10 metres at the boy and his friends.

Mr Rees said: ‘Taylor drove straight at the young boys, knocking them over like skittles at a bowling alley. It was a terrifying incident.

‘He had lost his temper. He deliberately mowed down the group using his vehicle as a one-tonne weapon to plough into the boys.

‘Taylor used his car as a weapon to drive at a group of young people, intending to cause them serious injury and, in fact, causing serious injury to 11 people.

‘What else other than to cause serious injury would he have driven in the manner he did?’

Mr Rees said it was only by ‘sheer good fortune’ that none of the boys suffered injuries worse than cuts and bruising.

He said one boy managed to hold on to Taylor’s bonnet and punch his windscreen, before Taylor got out of his car and continued assaulting friends of the group who confronted him, which saw him allegedly gouge one boy’s eye with his thumb.

The court heard the group of young football fans had been waiting outside the changing rooms for an opposition player, after a previous fight with one of the group.

A teenager who said he was the one whose eye had been gouged, said he was left with a broken hand from the incident during which Taylor had threatened: ‘No-one will get involved while I’m here.

‘I’ll wrap a bat around your heads.’

He also said Taylor threatened to ‘eat’ another one of the boys.

The teenager told the court: ‘Taylor said something along the lines of “I’ll eat you, you little c***”.’

Moments later he heard a car’s wheels spinning and an engine accelerating, he said.

‘None of us really expected it. The car was coming towards us. Then the car collided with about 11 of us,’ the teenager said.

‘The car struck me on my left leg in the quad area.

‘It kind of bounced me on to the floor and I slid across the floor.’

Taylor, from the Sandfields area of Port Talbot, denies dangerous driving, 11 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, and 11 alternative counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Cornelly play in the South Wales Alliance League 1st division, and the match itself finished 5-0 to Cornelly.

The trial continues.