The alleged assault happened in Manhattan and after the incident, which
Reuters says saw the unnamed man, 27, struck from behind by the 39-year-old model famous for her volatile temperament - causing him to hit his head on the steering wheel - Ms Campbell allegedly exited the Cadillac Escalade in which she was being driven and ran down the street.
Sustaining a bruise and swelling under his right eye the driver was able to report the incident to police who the
New York Daily News confirms were "canvassing the area".
According to
AFP a spokesman for New York police, Paul Browne, said:
An individual who said he was driving as the chauffeur for the model Naomi Campbell reported to a traffic enforcement officer... that she had assaulted him by hitting him in the back of the neck, causing his head to hit the steering wheel.
The driver said Miss Campbell had fled the scene on foot. We have to speak to her. We have not done so yet. We have not located her. We need to
The
New York Daily News quotes a police source as saying that should Ms Campbell, the organizer of a
charity fashion show in London in February to raise funds for women and children in earthquake-hit Haiti, not turn herself in officers will "go out and get her like anybody else".
However Jeff Raymond, agent for Ms Campbell and quite possibly the same man who until
recently worked with Tom Cruise, indicated that the model will be cooperating with the police, adding:
There shouldn't be a rush to judgment. There is more to the story than meets the eye
In 2007 Ms Campbell
admitted throwing a cell phone at Ana Scolavino, her one-time housekeeper in New York. She was sentenced to five days of community service and two days of anger management by Manhattan Criminal Court.
And in 2008 Ms Campbell was given
200 hours of community service by a magistrates court in Uxbridge, London after she admitted spitting at and kicking two police officers at Heathrow Airport. The charges to which she pleaded guilty related to an incident in which her luggage had gone missing.
Another assault involving a phone saw the supermodel ordered to attend anger management classes by a Toronto court in 2000.