A mechanic flew into a rage after almost running over a man on his way back from the shops – punching and kicking him as he lay in the road.

Robert Fuzi has now been jailed for 21 months for what a Swindon judge labelled a vicious road rage attack.

Swindon Crown Court heard the 27-year-old, who has a conviction in Romania for kidnap, was behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Grandland X on the night of February 24 when he passed a man stepping onto Harding Street in the town centre.

The man, who was on his way back from the shops, held up his arms as Fuzi’s car passed close by.

The gesture seemed to have angered the man behind the wheel. The mechanic stopped his car and stormed back towards the man who had stepped into the road.

Prosecutor Hannah Squire said: “Immediately, he started punching the victim repeatedly to the head. He went onto his knees and had his arms over his head to protect himself. Mr Fuzi started to kick the man to the body and head.”

The victim blacked out. Fuzi said nothing to him during the frenzied attack.

It came to an end only when a passing motorist saw him kicking something on the ground and stopped his car. “He didn’t even at that point think it was a person on the ground,” Ms Squire said of the Good Samaritan.

When the driver realised it was a man on the floor, surrounded by his scattered shopping, he went to intervene.

Fuzi fled in his Vauxhall and the witness, realising the severity of the assault, followed in his own car. His dashcam captured the man’s number plate, leading police to arrest him at a hotel within a couple of hours.

Interviewed by detectives, Fuzi said the number plate matched his but denied having anything to do with the attack – claiming the plates must have been cloned.

The court heard his victim had suffered bruises and cuts to his face. He had had trouble sleeping and still experienced flashbacks to the night he was assaulted.

Fuzi had previous convictions for violence, including an assault last year when he attacked a man in the car park of a London Halfords.

The Londoner, of Windsor Road, Holloway, pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

Clare Fear, defending, asked the judge to give her client credit for his early guilty pleas. “He fully accepts that following gesticulation by the complainant he lost his temper and reacted in the way described. He doesn’t seek to minimise his responsibility or culpability in any way.”

He had been in the UK since 2016 and worked as a car mechanic.

Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Peter Crabtree told Fuzi: “At least one other person witnessed your vicious assault and this was a case in simple terms of road rage.

“Road rage is a serious concern to all who occupy the roads in this country whether they are motorists, cyclists or pedestrians as your victim was on this occasion.”

He praised the efforts of the Good Samaritan, putting him forward for a £500 High Sheriff’s Award.