Hollie Dance and Thomas Summers have been jailed after chasing a man for 13 miles through Essex and ramming him off the road in what prosecutors described as a revenge attack. Dance was sentenced to four years at Basildon Crown Court, while Summers received five years.
The case ended this week after jurors took about three hours in April to find both defendants guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. The pair, both of Alton Gardens in Southend-on-Sea, followed the victim from Westcliff-on-Sea to Basildon on 10 October 2022 in two cars, with Dance tailing him in a BMW along the A127 and Summers following in a rented Toyota.
By the time the chase reached Uppermayne in Basildon, Dance had forced the victim’s red Peugeot into a tree. He was ejected from the car and later found to have fractures to his shoulder and foot. Prosecutor Richard Scott said the man made an increasingly frantic call to police as he tried to get away, before Summers’ car rammed into him and sent him into a bush.
The victim, a chef, said he had never understood why he was targeted that night and said the claims made about him were rumours. That mattered because Dance’s daughter had falsely accused him of attacking her with a bottle, a claim that helped frame the confrontation as more than road rage and gave the violence its revenge edge.
Dance’s sentence lands with a wider and darker context. She had buried her son, Archie Battersbee, only weeks earlier, after his life support was switched off in 2022, and she had already admitted dangerous driving and been convicted of possessing an incapacitant spray found at the scene. Summers was also found guilty of affray and had earlier pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
What remains unresolved is the part played by Dance’s daughter in setting the attack in motion. The court has now dealt with the men who chased and crushed the victim’s escape, but the reason he was singled out on that October night still hangs over a case that ended in prison terms, not answers.
