A BAHRAINI father suffered permanent disability after jumping on the bonnet of a car to prevent the driver speeding away with his 16-year-old daughter.
The 54-year-old was left with a fractured skull, internal bleeding, brain injuries and facial paralysis when he was thrown from the moving vehicle, which was driven by his daughter’s 20-year-old boyfriend.
Her boyfriend is now standing trial for assault in the High Criminal Court, which heard that he had been in a relationship with the girl for five years.
“On August 20 at midnight my girlfriend told me on Snapchat to come pick her up from her home in Sanabis, so I went at 3am,” the boyfriend told prosecutors in his statement.
“I took her home at around 7am, but when we got there her father appeared.
“She panicked and told me to drive away, but I couldn’t because she was still in the car.
“The 54-year-old stood in front of me and started banging on the bonnet demanding that I switch the car off.”
He said he tried to reverse the car, but the girl’s father jumped on the bonnet in an attempt to stop him.
“He was lying on the bonnet and screaming, grabbing my wipers,” said the boyfriend.
“So I floored it and made a steep right turn.
“He then fell off the bonnet and we left the scene.
“Hours later the 16-year-old’s sister called her and said their father was at Salmaniya Medical Complex, so I dropped her there and left.”
The incident happened on August 20 last year and the boyfriend was later arrested at his home.
He said the father had twice reported him to police, once for talking to his daughter and a second time accusing him of being with the girl when he wasn’t present.
Meanwhile, the daughter told prosecutors that she instructed her boyfriend to drive away when her father confronted them.
“He saw my father and locked the car doors,” she recalled in her statement.
“My father was screaming for us to get out of the car.
“He (the boyfriend) floored it and kept swerving left and right. My father was knocked off the bonnet.”
The trial was yesterday adjourned until April 9 for review and submission of medical reports.
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