A THUG who launched a shocking attack on a gran as she played bingo in Carlisle has been jailed for more than three years.
Kenneth Stilgoe, 33, first confronted a man outside the city’s Buzz Bingo complex on the evening of March 14, hitting him in the face before delivering almost a dozen more punches.
Stilgoe left but returned 10 minutes later and prised open doors to the venue which had been locked to prevent him coming back in. Shocking CCTV footage showed him running upstairs and clambering over tables and chairs before approaching 80-year-old Marion Jackson, who had her back to him as she played.
Prosecutor Jon Close told Carlisle Crown Court. “The defendant punched Mrs Jackson to the back of the head, forcing her to the table. He grabbed her, pulled her toward him and punched her again.”
Stilgoe walked away and was restrained, leaving the married grandmother with soft tissue and muscular injuries.
“I have never known pain like it. I thought I was going to die,” she later stated. “I will never heal from this. I just want my normal little life back.” Now aged 81 and a bingo fan for as long as she could remember, she added: “One thing I know for certain is that I will never play again.”
It emerged father-of-four Stilgoe, of Newtown Road, Carlisle, had been socialising and drinking with relatives after being released from custody on bail without his medication days earlier. He had successfully appealed against a jury conviction and 10-year jail term imposed for a 2016 Christmas Day street attack in Cockermouth, and had been granted a retrial.
Stilgoe admitted two actual bodily harm assaults on Mr Brown and Mrs Jackson. He was described by his barrister as “overwhelmingly remorseful” when coming to his senses after the incident, during which drink “had a dramatic effect on him”.
In relation to the 2016 incident, Stilgoe now admitted causing Callum Marrs grievous bodily harm by playing a limited role in that Cockermouth violence.
Recorder Andrew Nuttall heard of Stilgoe’s “terrible upbringing” and recent positive progress in custody.
But, jailing him for 39 months for the two sets of offences, the judge said he had “incomprehensibly” attacked Mrs Jackson, adding of the bingo hall crimes: “These were two acts of appalling violence.”
