Jail for Leamington hammer attack pensioner

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A PENSIONER who attacked a drunken neighbour, hitting him over the head with a hammer in his own home, has been jailed for four years.

Jan Bailey, 67, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to wounding his victim Anthony Murphy with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

The two men were neighbours at flats in Warwick Place, Leamington, and in the two weeks prior to the incident Mr Murphy made two ‘ill-advised visits’ to Bailey’s flat when in drink.

On both occasions he had banged on the door, and the first time also involved him shouting and swearing.

There was clearly ‘an unfortunate history’ between the two men, with Mr Murphy making a nuisance of himself, but it did not justify the way Bailey reacted on November 12 last year.

Having learned two days earlier that his mother had died, Mr Murphy spent the day in a number of pubs, drinking ten to 15 pints of stout in ten hours.

After getting home he answered a knock on his door to find Bailey standing there with a claw hammer in his right hand and a large knife in his left.

Bailey barged in complaining Mr Murphy had banged on his door again. Mr Murphy pleaded he did not want to upset Bailey, only tell him about his mother death.

Bailey swung hit Mr Murphy to the forehead with the hammer and then landed another blow to the back of his head before leaving.

Mr Murphy went to the nearby Woodlands pub, where the landlady called for an ambulance to take him to hospital and he had stitches in the two skull-deep wounds.

When Bailey was arrested the police found the hammer and knife hidden behind his toilet cistern, and he said he was being driven to a nervous breakdown by Mr Murphy’s behaviour, but answered ‘no comment’ to questions about the attack.

Prosecutor Andrew Day added Bailey had previous convictions for violence, including two offences of wounding in the 1970’s, but none since 1980.

And Amy Jacobs, defending, said: “This is not a man who has a tendency to use violence these days. The last conviction for violence was 39 years ago when he was 28.”

She said Bailey had been a steel erector for 28 years until he retired five years ago because of back problems, and lived alone, rarely leaving his flat.

Recorder Sam Mainds told Bailey: “A man of your age should have known there is an alternative way of dealing with the annoyance this man was causing you.”