The owner of a travel business was assaulted in a supermarket car park by a disgruntled former employee accused of causing damage to the firm’s vehicles, a court has heard.

Ian Trussler, who owns Beccles-based Goldline Travel, had come out of Morrisons supermarket in Beccles and was carrying two bags of shopping when he saw Adrian Ling, who he had sacked two years earlier.

Mr Trussler told a jury at Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday that Ling had shouted abuse at him before headbutting him above his eye, causing him to fall to the ground.

Ling was subsequently arrested and convicted of assaulting Mr Trussler after a trial.

During his evidence, Mr Trussler claimed that between 2013 and 2017 about £300,000 damage was caused to his vehicles.

Ling, 63, of Woodside, Beccles, and Daniel Garrison, 34, of Danforth Drive, Woodbridge, have denied conspiring to commit criminal damage to property belonging to Goldline Travel between December 2012 and November 2019.

Ling has also denied four offences of having an air rifle with intent to commit criminal damage between 2013 and 2019.

It  has been alleged that during a campaign of violence by Ling against Goldline Travel, which operates a small fleet of coaches and taxis from its premises in Ellough near Beccles, its vehicles were repeatedly vandalised and, on several occasions, taxis were shot at while picking up and carrying fares.

The court heard that Ling started working with Goldline in 2008 as a mechanic and was sacked by Mr Trussler in 2012.

“It is clear that he was very angry about being sacked and it’s the prosecution case that he has harboured a significant personal grudge against Ian Trussler and Goldline and has carried out a sustained vendetta against them,” alleged Andrew Thompson, prosecuting. 

He claimed that Ling, who was convicted of stealing diesel from Goldline but subsequently acquitted on appeal, started the vendetta following his dismissal while Garrison allegedly joined the conspiracy in 2016.

The trial continues.