Emmerdale actor ‘growled like a mad dog’ before biting pensioner in beer garden row, court hears
Mark Jordon allegedly attacked man who he claims called his daughter a ‘slag’
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Emmerdale actor Mark Jordon growled “like a mad dog” and screamed “I’ll f***ing kill you”, before attacking a couple following an argument in a pub beer garden, a court has heard.
The 54-year-old, who played Daz Spencer in the Yorkshire soap opera, allegedly bit Andrew Potts, 68, and pushed his partner Rosalind O’Neill.
The row broke out outside the Farrars Arms in Oldham, Greater Manchester on 1 July last year after Ms O’Neill made the comment “I hope they are using protection” about Mr Jordon’s daughter, who had been “straddling” a man in the beer garden.
“The next thing I see is Jordon on the other side of our bench screaming at Rosalind, and I mean really screaming,” Mr Potts told Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court.
“He said, ‘That’s my f***ing daughter you are talking about’.”
The court heard Ms O’Neill apologised to Mr Jordon, but Mr Potts told him: “I wouldn’t let my daughter act like that in front of me.”
CCTV footage showed the former Heartbeat actor having to be held back from Mr Potts
Mr Potts, who wiped away tears as he gave evidence, said Mr Jordon behaved “like a madman” and was dragged back as he screamed: “I’ll f***ing kill you, you old bastard.”
Mr Potts admitted throwing two punches at Mr Jordon. The actor’s nose then started to bleed, but Mr Potts insisted he had not him in the nose and suggested he had taken cocaine.
The alleged victim said he believed Mr Jordon had “got a line of coke” in the pub toilets and told police officers who later arrested the actor he may have taken drugs.
He said: “I said test him for coke, he’s off his head. They said to me ‘we can’t test him for coke because he wasn’t driving’.”
Keith Harrison, defending, suggested Mr Potts had called Mr Jordon’s daughter a “slag”.
Mr Potts said: “No, 100 per cent, not at all.”
He also denied saying he had filmed the girl and would post it on YouTube. But he told the court he might have said “f*** off, you think you’re clever because you’re on TV” to Mr Jordon’s girlfriend Laura Norton, 36, who plays Kerry Wyatt in Emmerdale.
Asked if he had called Mr Jordon a “d**khead”, Mr Potts laughed and said: “He was acting like one.”
Mr Potts and Ms O’Neill were escorted from the pub, the jury heard.
After walking some distance down the road, a taxi pulled up in front of them and Mr Jordon got out and pushed Ms O’Neill to the floor, Mr Potts told the court.
“I just seen this mountain of a man,” he said. “I did kick him between his legs. He didn’t flinch. He then came towards me and he was still screaming and shouting and his face was ... it was just horrendous, he was growling like a mad dog.”
Mr Potts said Mr Jordon bit his thumb and the palm of his hand, spitting out a chunk of skin, before they both fell to the ground, where Mr Jordon bit his eyebrow.
He denied Mr Harrison’s suggestion that he had pushed Ms O’Neill out of the way before jumping on Mr Jordon’s back and putting his fingers and thumb inside his mouth to grab his cheek.
Mr Jordon, who wore a striped T-shirt and suit jacket in court, denies affray, unlawfully wounding Mr Potts, and the assault by beating of Ms O’Neill.
Mr Jordon’s Emmerdale co-stars Chris Chittell, who plays Eric Pollard, Nick Miles, who is Jimmy King in the soap, and Sammy Winward, who played Katie Sugden, sat in the front row of the public gallery during the hearing.