DOSANGE: HE BEAT HIS OWN HEAD AGAINST THE WALL

A restaurateur accused of beating an employee with an iron bar after he admitted stealing money from the till claimed that the man had injured himself to stop them calling police.

Harmesh Dosange, 46, and his nephew Jasbir Dosange, 30, allegedly kept the man captive overnight and administered such a terrifying beating that he wet himself.

He was forced to empty his account of nearly £4,000 and call relatives to try to raise more cash after he confessed to stealing, jurors were told.

The Indian student needed hospital treatment for his injuries , which was intended to ‘make an example’ of him in front of other employees, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Today, Harmesh Dosange claimed that the man had caused his own injuries by beating his head against the wall after being shown CCTV footage from the restaurant tills.

He told jurors the student had said: ‘If you call the police now, the case will be going against you’.

‘His intention was that I do not call the police and we will sort it out between ourselves,’ he said.

John McNally, prosecuting, said the victim had been working at a fish and chip restaurant in Dalston, east London, which was run by Jasbir Dosange.

It was closely linked a neighbouring curry house, which was owned and managed by Harmesh Dosange.

The court has heard he was called to a back office in the curry house at around 10.30pm on February 5 by the two men, who said they had proof he had taken the cash.

Prosecutors alleged he accepted taking cash after he was beaten, but the pair continued to assault him and ‘turned their minds to demanding money way beyond what he had taken from the till’.

He suggested they were motivated by ‘a mixture of vengeance, a desire to humiliate him, and perhaps simple extortion’.

Giving evidence, the 21 year-old said he thought he would die at their hands.

He was then made to call relatives in India and America to try to raise another 40,000 Indian rupees demanded by the pair, it is claimed.

He was only released the next morning after agreeing to record a message on Harmesh Dosange’s phone, saying he had been ‘jumped on’ by a group of men by a nightclub.

But Harmesh Dosange told the court the employee had become hysterical after being confronted with the CCTV footage.

‘He starts screaming, he was just upset, he was saying “I never realised you have proof to show”,’ he said.

‘He just started banging his head against the wall.’

He claimed he was forced to hold the man’s arms to stop him hurting himself further and asked him to sit on chair in the hope of calming him.

After calling Jasbir Dosange to help try to pacify the man, all three moved out into the main restaurant where there was more space to talk the matter over, he said.

Eventually, the employee admitted that he had taken around £10,000 from the tills, it was said.

Dosange said student sat on the floor trying to hold his feet and repeatedly begged: ‘Don’t call the police’.

He also pulled out his bank cards and offered to repay the cash.

Eventually he used the restaurant’s card system to make several payments to the restaurant, he told jurors.

The pair had still wanted to call the police but were concerned because he had ‘damaged himself’ and they feared they would be blamed, he added.

Harmesh Dosange, of (61) Drake Road, Chafford Hundred, Grays, Essex; and Jasbir Dosange, of (146) Beaumont Drive, Gravesend, Kent; both deny false imprisonment, actual bodily harm and blackmail.

The trial continues.

ENDS