CCTV shows the moment Philip Saunders, 69, lunged at businessman Mohammad Reza Ghadami, 62 amid a bitter £100million legal battle
EASTENDERS star Davood Ghadami's father hit out at "soft justice" today after a top lawyer who headbutted him in an astonishing High Court bust-up was spared jail.
Philip Saunders, 69, broke businessman Mohammad Reza Ghadami's nose "in a rage" outside a courtroom amid an ongoing £100million land dispute.
Todday Saunders was given an 18 month suspended jail sentence — and now faces being struck off as a solicitor.
But Mr Ghadami, 62 — whose son Davood, 34, plays Albert Square market trader Kush Kazemi — blasted: "Justice has not been done".
He told the Sun: "It seems like special treatment. It's unbelievable if a lawyer of all people can do this and get away with it. He should be in prison.
"He left me dizzy, scared and in pain. That shocking moment with stay with me for the rest of my life."
The property developer, of Harlow, Essex, says he struggles to concentrate since the attack last April and is kept awake by his own snoring caused by a permanently broken septum.
He was locked in a bitter four-year court fight with Saunders and 18 others over a disputed land deal when Saunders approached him "out of the blue" on a landing at the Rolls Building, part of the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
In CCTV footage shown in court Mr Ghadami swings his briefcase between the silver-haired lawyer's legs — and he retaliates by delivering a headbutt to his face, sending him reeling back with blood streaming from his nose.
Saunders takes a step back before stooping down towards his smaller rival and using his forehead to strike Mr Ghadami in the face.
Mr Ghadami told Inner London crown court Saunders said to him: “You better f***ing find the money to pay me and others”, and when he replied he did not owe him anything, Saunders said: “We are f***ing in charge, you just got lucky”.
Mr Ghadami added: “He said you don’t know what we are capable of, you will never succeed in the case.
“He kept on at me about money and winning and power.”
Mr Ghadami said he swung his briefcase at Saunders to get past because he was desperate for the toilet.
He added: “He went backwards and all his body lifted his head, which he put on the back of my nose. I couldn’t believe it, it was bleeding from my nose and mouth.
“He just told me to remember it and I do remember it, I will never forget it. He wanted me to remember what I was getting.”
Saunders, who appeared last week as a witness in the Candy brothers' £132million blackmail case, claimed he was “hit in the balls” with the case and Mr Ghadami called him a “Jewish s***”.
But he was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a jury in January.
His conviction can only now be reported after prosecutors decided not to pursue Mr Ghadami, of Harlow, Essex, for a racially aggravated public order offence over the alleged anti-Semitic slur.
David Nathan QC, mitigating, said there was "a very high degree of provocation" between the pair "against the background of tension" amid the long-running High Court case.
He said the alleged anti-Jewish comments "effectively broke the camel's back", and Saunders headbutted the victim in a "moment of madness".
Recorder Gasztowicz told him: "You completely lost your self-control, lent backwards and quite deliberately headbutted him.
";It was clear that you could have left his presence without doing anything like that deliberate and serious assault, albeit on the spur of the moment."
The judge added: "The offence was committed in a High Court building, where any litigant is entitled to feel safe, however annoying he may be and whatever is going on between you.
"It was committed by someone who was a solicitor, who is trusted to act properly in such buildings."
He ordered Saunders to undertake 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £5,000 prosecution costs, and made him subject to a five-year restraining order and a four-month curfew between 8pm and 6am.
Saunders, of Maida Vale, London, has referred himself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and could be struck off, the court heard.
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