November 19th 2023.
At Reading Crown Court, a heated argument between two chefs at the 38-bedroom Cantley House Hotel in upmarket Wokingham, Berkshire, boiled over into a violent assault. It all started with a row over potato croquettes and resulted in one of the chefs, Rashim Salim, strangling and punching the other, known only as Mr Bardu.
The court heard how Salim, of Challener Road, High Wycombe, had grabbed Mr Bardu by the throat and punched him three times in the incident on January 27. The prosecutor, Shaan Sethi, described to the court how the argument had escalated to the point of physical violence.
The defence counsel for Salim, Adele Pullarp, spoke of his difficult financial situation, as he was holding down two jobs in order to pay for child maintenance costs for his older children. He had been diagnosed with stage five kidney failure in 2020 and had to undergo dialysis. She also added that he was a successful chef who had maintained a romantic relationship over the last five years.
Judge Joanna Matson took into consideration that Salim had previous convictions for violence from 2015 but they were not taken as an aggravating factor by the court. After checking the CCTV footage from the incident, the judge acknowledged that the strangulation was not prolonged.
Salim was handed an 18-month community sentence for the assault causing actual bodily harm, which he admitted. He was ordered to complete 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days, 140 hours of unpaid work and to pay £120 in compensation to Mr Bardu.
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