COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

An OAP who was at his wit’s end following his neighbour’s post-drinking antics and hit him over the head with a hammer, has been jailed for four years.

Jan Bailey, aged 67, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to wounding the man with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

Prosecutor Andrew Day said that he had entered his plea despite knowing that the victim said he no longer wanted to co-operate with the prosecution.

The two men were neighbours at flats in Warwick Place, Leamington, and in the two weeks prior to the incident the victim made two visits to Bailey’s flat after drinking, where he banged on the door, shouted and swore.

The victim was grieving following the death of his mother and spent November 12 in pubs, drinking ten to 15 pints.

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

Bailey barged in, saying: “You’ve been knocking on my door again. I’m going to do you. This is what we do in South Africa.”

The victim begged him: “Please, Jan; I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to tell you my mum had died.”

Bailey swung the hammer at him but missed, then swung again, hitting the man to the forehead and then landed another blow to the back of his head before leaving, telling him: “Don’t go knocking on my door again.”

The man went to the Wood-lands 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 he said he was being driven to a nervous breakdown by his neighbour’s behaviour.

Mr Day added that Bailey had previous convictions for violence, including two offences of wounding, but none since 1980.

Amy Jacobs, defending, said Bailey, who had expressed remorse, had been a steel erector for 28 years until he retired five years ago because of back problems, lived alone and rarely left 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.”