Billionaire art dealer’s son bashed partner’s head against wall in drunken rage at Knightsbridge apartment

Joseph Nahmad leaving Southwark Crown Court
Tony Palmer
Tony Palmer31 July 2019
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The son of a billionaire art dealer could face jail after he admitted banging his girlfriend’s head against a wall during a drunken row at his multi-million-pound Knightsbridge apartment.

Joseph Nahmad, 31, carried out a “considerable beating” on his partner at his home in March and had attacked her in another incident five months earlier. He pleaded guilty to two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Southwark crown court heard Nahmad first attacked the woman on October 27 last year and again on March 8 this year at his apartment in The Knightsbridge complex.

Prosecutor John Fairhead said the victim had also accused Nahmad of picking up a knife during the second incident, but he denies this allegation.

“This is in the context of a considerable beating — banging her head against a wall,” he said. “Both parties drank to excess and she on two occasions says she was tipsy.”

Nahmad pleaded not guilty to a third alleged attack at celebrity nightclub Tape London, in Mayfair, and the charge was dropped by the prosecution.

Defence barrister William Clegg QC told Monday’s hearing: “There was an incident in a nightclub where a scratch and bruise were sustained. Very minor injuries.”

He added that the victim had attempted to withdraw all three allegations against Nahmad, who told the court: “She was in a consensual, loving relationship that at times became toxic.” Nahmad is the son of billionaire David Nahmad, who with brothers Giuseppe and Ezra established the family as world-famous fine art dealers.

Following in the footsteps of his father, uncles and cousin, also called Joseph, who runs the Nahmad Contemporary gallery in New York, Nahmad made his own waves in the art industry in 2016 with the launch of Nahmad Projects, in Cork Street, Mayfair. At the time of the launch, the young art dealer promised to “bring a radical edge to Mayfair’s contemporary art scene”.

Judge Jeffrey Pegden QC bailed Nahmad until September 2 when he is due to be sentenced and could face a custodial term.

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