Fulbeck man jailed for taking a sledgehammer to cars and threatening to stab a pub customer

A man took a sledgehammer to vehicles in a pub car park and then threatened to stab a customer who confronted him, Lincoln Crown Court was told today (Thurs).
Lincoln Crown Court.Lincoln Crown Court.
Lincoln Crown Court.

A man who took a sledgehammer to vehicles in a pub car park and then threatened to stab a customer who confronted him, has ben jailed for 10 months at Lincoln Crown Court today (Thursday).

Craig Young went to the car park of the Hare and Hounds in the village of Fulbeck where he used the sledgehammer to smash the windows of two cars and attacked the bonnet of a third vehicle.

Young, 34, of Ash Close, Fulbeck, admitted affray, possession of a bladed article and three charges of criminal damage as a result of the incident on September 11, 2016. He was jailed for 10 months.

Sam Skinner, prosecuting, said that customer Stephen Ward was alerted by the noise and came out of the pub to find his daughter’s car had been smashed up.

Mr Ward approached Young and asked what he was doing only for Young to produce a knife and tell him, “Back off or I’ll stab you”.

Police were called out to the pub and after Young was arrested he told officers he was suffering from heroin withdrawal.

Mr Skinner told the court that before arriving at the pub car park Young knocked on the door of a nearby house and told the resident that he was having a bad day and was going to smash things up.

John McNally, in mitigation, said that Young had “a difficult and tragic history” which had led to him using heroin.

He said Young only had one previous conviction and urged he be given the chance of help from the probation service.

But Judge Simon Hirst, passing sentence, told Young: “There cannot be any excuse at all for doing what you did that day. It seems to me that this case is so serious that only an immediate custodial sentence will do.”