A man who punched and kicked a male more than twice his age during an unprovoked attack in Workington has been jailed.
Gary Smith, then aged 55, had left a Spar shop at Harrington Road, on May 18 last year, and was in a back lane with a friend when Scott Motum walked over, asking whether he had a problem and was being laughed at.
Motum, 25, threw a punch at Mr Smith, yanked a jacket over his head and pulled him to the ground. Motum’s violence continued and he later accepted punching him two or three times, kicking the victim while he was prone on the floor and being responsible for his injuries.
He spoke of having had a verbal altercation with Mr Smith’s friend.
“He was aware,” prosecutor Tim Evans told Carlisle Crown Court of Mr Smith, “of a kick to his stomach which, because of a hernia, caused a great deal of pain.”
Mr Smith was taken to hospital by ambulance and treated having also suffered an injury to his lip which required stitches, a black eye and a lump to the right side of his head.
“I thought I was going to die,” he later told police. “The incident has changed my lifestyle and damaged me. I keep thinking in my head that he is terrorising me.”
Motum, of Cusack Crescent, Workington, admitted an actual bodily harm assault on the day he was due to stand trial and was sentenced this morning.
The judge, Recorder Katherine Pierpoint, heard of several previous convictions for violence, but also of Motum’s remorse for the Spar attack.
“This was an unprovoked attack that should not have taken place,” said the judge as she jailed him for 12 months and banned him from contacting the victim for five years. “I hope that you are deeply ashamed.”
