A young man who used a metal bar to attack a car containing his partner and then made threats to kill the shocked driver has been spared immediate prison.
Nathan Paul Brown, 22, was in “crisis” at the time having been reported missing before the incident and prescribed medication by professionals.
Brown appeared on a road in Workington at 4am on June 19 last year as his partner was being transported home by an innocent Good Samaritan.
She was asleep in the passenger seat when Brown approached the vehicle from behind and tried to open two locked doors having yelled “get out”.
Brown then used a 40cm metal bar to first hit and crack the vehicle’s windscreen; and then, when the shocked driver stalled in his desperate bid to get away, to smash a side window.
Brown continued to shout, telling the other man he would “smash your head in” and demanding he get out of the car or he would “end up killing him”.
After Brown took the man’s phone, a neighbour emerged.
“That caused the defendant to pull his hood over his head,” prosecutor Andrew Evans told Carlisle Crown Court today. “However, the neighbour said ‘there’s no point in doing that, I know who you are’.”
Police arrived, found Brown on an adjacent street still clutching the metal bar and he was arrested after an officer drew a Taser.
When brought to court Brown, of Mona Road, Salterbeck, admitted affray, offensive weapon possession and criminal damage.
The driver later told how the incident caused him “great distress”, adding: “I am now scared to go outside as I know he lives in the local area. When I go out running I am always looking over my shoulder in case he is there.”
Defence barrister Kim Whittlestone, giving mitigation, confirmed Brown was “at a time of crisis” when the incident unfolded. “He fully acknowledges that he overreacted and that he should not have behaved as he did. He has shown genuine remorse,” she said.
Concluding that there was strong personal mitigation and that Brown was capable of being rehabilitated, Recorder Peter Horgan suspended a 24-week jail term for 18 months.
Brown must complete unpaid work and rehabilitation work but was told by the judge he had acted in a “wholly inappropriate” manner.
