Three years' jail for club raider

May 29 2008 The Journal

A MAN feared for his life when he was attacked in his own home by a raider armed with a crowbar, a court heard yesterday.

Ian Smith was watching television in the living room of his flat above Wearside Golf Club in Cox Green, Sunderland, in the late evening when he heard the door open.

He initially thought it was a member of staff, but was then confronted by convicted burglar Leslie Taylor, wearing a black balaclava and wielding a crowbar, who ordered him to lie down on the floor. Mr Smith was repeatedly asked where the keys to the safe were kept and when he managed to get hold of the crowbar and swing it towards him, Taylor launched a violent assault, Newcastle Crown Court was told.

“Taylor jumped on his back and caused him to stumble towards the settee,” said Jacqueline Wilkinson, prosecuting. “He stuck one of his fingers into Mr Smith’s eye. He was shouting ‘Just lie down’. He repeatedly punched Mr Smith in the head.”

Mr Smith, who was able to get hold of the crowbar and use it in his defence, suffered injuries including cuts and grazes to his forehead and soreness to his jaw, knees and shoulder.

In a victim impact statement, he said he thought he was going to die during the confrontation in July last year. Taylor, 49, of Ramillies Square, Red House, Sunderland, was jailed for three years after admitting burglary and assault.

Glen Gatland, defending, said Taylor’s last conviction had been in 2001 and since then he had set up his own mobile mechanic business, which he had lost after a man failed to repay a £30,000 loan.

He said Taylor admitted the offences on the basis he had the crowbar to get into the gaming machines and did not realise the flat was the residential part of the golf club.

“He did not anticipate there would be anyone present in the flat,” Mr Gatland said. He did not realise the premises above were occupied.

Passing sentence, Recorder Jeremy Freedman said he accepted it may not have been Taylor’s intention to confront anyone.

But he said he had, in fact, confronted Mr Smith in “the most terrifying way”, both threatening and assaulting him.

The judge told him: “Thankfully he did not suffer serious injury but understandably he has suffered severe trauma. The events of that night will live with him until his dying days.”