A salesman drove home from a business lunch with no idea someone had sliced through part of his new car’s steering in the car park. Now a Málaga court has sentenced the guilty retired garage owner who blamed the man for the collapse of his business and plotted his revenge. 

The plot began when a supplier pulled the plug

A retired Antequera business owner has been sentenced to five years and five months in prison over attacks carried out in 2017 and 2018, after the Provincial Court of Málaga convicted him of attempted murder, causing injuries and making threats. His son was given one year and three months for joining a later roadside attack on the same man, a sales representative the father blamed for the downfall of his car repair and machinery business. 

The trouble started in August 2017, when a German multinational supplier began ending its distribution agreement with them. Turnover fell by nearly 60 per cent, and although his daughter had been the firm’s sole director since 2016, the business owner still ran it day to day.

The steering was cut while the salesman was at lunch

In October 2017, the supplier held a convention at the Parador de Antequera. The father followed the salesman’s movements through text messages with his daughter, then walked into the car park with an angle grinder fitted with a metal-cutting disc while the salesman sat through a business lunch. He partly cut through the track rod (the part that links the steering to the front wheel) beside the front right wheel of the salesman’s new car, hoping to cause a fatal crash on the drive back to Marbella.

The salesman drove home with no idea, however the next day the car started veering about on a main road, but he was able to keep control and pulled onto the hard shoulder unhurt. Mechanics and an independent industrial engineer appointed by the court later confirmed the part had been deliberately cut with a specialist power tool.

Then came an ambush on the A-92

The story deepens even more, as the supplier formally ended the agreement in December 2017, and on Monday March 5 2018, the father and son boxed in the salesman’s car with two vehicles on the A-92 dual carriageway as he drove towards Marbella. The son smashed the driver’s window with a car jack, punched him in the mouth and pressed an electric shock device against his thigh. The father then repeatedly threatened to kill the salesman and his family if he went to the police. 

The salesman suffered facial wounds, upper jaw injuries and trauma, and needed 29 days to recover. 

The salesman died before the trial

The salesman died of natural causes before the case reached court, so the evidence had to speak for him. That included the son’s fingerprints on the car’s frame and the family’s car jack, which was found inside the vehicle.

His widow joined the case as a private prosecutor, and her lawyer, Alfonso Choza, said he was satisfied with the verdict and praised the National Police homicide unit for its investigation.

The court took the long delays in the case into account as a mitigating factor. In the end, the father must pay €10,000 to the salesman’s widow and heirs for emotional harm, and both men must jointly pay €11,000 for the physical injuries, lasting scarring and moral damages.