Scary Spice's ex guilty of assault

Mel B married Gulzar in 1998

LONDON, England -- The former husband of Spice Girl Mel B has been convicted of assaulting her younger sister.

Jimmy Gulzar was fined £400 ($580) and ordered to pay Danielle Brown a further £400 compensation after being found guilty of common assault at Highbury Magistrates Court, in north London.

He was also ordered to pay £200 ($290) costs.

Dressed in a grey overcoat and glasses, Gulzar, 33, showed no emotion and stared fixedly forward for the verdict.

During the trial Brown, an actress who has appeared in the English TV soap opera Emmerdale, told the court Gulzar lifted her off the ground by her throat and spat in her face.

She had gone to his home in Hampstead, north London, on August 6 last year to pick up Phoenix Chi, his daughter with Mel B, who was then 18 months old.

The little girl had been staying with Gulzar for five days during his divorce proceedings with Mel B -- aka Scary Spice.

Brown said she was 22 minutes late to pick up the child and when she rang the buzzer Dutch-born Gulzar answered: "I'll be down in a minute you cow."

She said when he came down she bent down to pick up Phoenix Chi and he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.

"He kept on spitting in my face, he was shouting and then spitting. To be honest I just went weak, I was just screaming and crying," Brown said.

District Judge Ian Baker said: "I do not accept that events were as one-sided as Miss Brown would have me believe. I do not accept she was attacked out of the blue."

But he conceded the marks on her neck and buttock were "at least consistent with forceful contact with brickwork or the sill slightly below the window".

He said Gulzar had clearly been involved in a heated exchange with the 19-year-old and in using the amount of force he did, had committed an unlawful assault.

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Mel B
The Spice Girls

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