A FORMER Sydney radio host allegedly punched his neighbour in the face after discovering grass clippings on his driveway.
Dr Allan Ared, an eye doctor and former co-host of 2GB’s All About Eyes, allegedly clenched a key inside his fist and struck Tom Mitchell, 31, on the cheek about 9pm on Saturday.
Mr Mitchell alleges Dr Ared and his wife Simone confronted him after finding a scattering of freshly cut grass clippings on his Whitfield Pde, Hurstville Grove driveway after he mowed his lawn earlier in the day.
He claims the couple began banging on Mr Mitchell’s door and using obscene language.
The remarks included, “You are white scum.”
Mr Mitchell and his wife, Kelly, 30, recognised their neighbour’s voices and answered the door.
When Mr Mitchell went outside to inspect the grass clippings he was allegedly punched by Dr Ared.
“I looked down on the grass and I thought are you kidding me,” Mr Mitchell said. “I picked some grass up and threw it back down,” he said. “It has cut open a slice on my face.’’
Mr Mitchell suffered a cut under his eye requiring four stitches. Police said they charged Dr Ared with assault later that night.
Dr Ared is former radio host on 2GB and is well known in the local community for his work at Omni Eye Centre in Kogarah.
Last night a 2GB spokesman said Dr Ared has no position at the station and is not on the airwaves at all.
But it is not the first confrontation that Dr Ared and his wife have had with Mr and Mrs Mitchell who moved into the home as newlyweds last October after getting married in September.
Dr Ared requested that they not park their car out the front of their own home because it made it difficult for his wife to see the traffic on the street as she drove from the driveway.
Mr Mitchell said they refused and Dr Ared “soaked him with a hose” over the backyard fence the following day.
During this exchange Mr Mitchell said Simone threatened them by saying, “My cousins want to pay you a visit, is what she said”.
Mrs Mitchell said she was devastated, but refused to be bullied by anyone. “It happened really quickly,” she said.
“I called triple-0 as soon as I realised that Tom had been punched in the face.
“They just wouldn’t leave us alone, I kept asking her to leave and tried to close the door on her and asked her to get away from the door, she just wouldn’t, neither of them would. We don’t want to be intimidated in our own home,” she said
Mr Ared’s wife, Simone, said she and her husband were “not commenting” about the allegations after she was approached by The Daily Telegraph.
