Delusional law graduate mowed down Castleford neighbours in sickening paranoid attack
A law graduate with a delusional disorder mowed down his neighbours after he “harboured” a long-standing grudge, claiming they were spying on him.
Charles Barratt carried out the horror attack in which he mounted the pavement on their street and drove directly into them, then got out and set about them with a glass object.
Leeds Crown Court heard the two families had been next-door neighbours in Castleford for almost 20 years, and despite disputes between the victims and Barratt’s parents, there had been nothing for a “considerable length of time”.
Barratt, 26, was detained under the Mental Health Act rather than being jailed after he admitted two counts of GBH with intent.
Judge Christopher Batty told him: “You are an intelligent young man who graduated from university with a law degree. But you are not a well man.
“It’s likely to be something you have been suffering from for a number of years. It’s clear to me that this illness lay behind the terrible events that led you to be sitting before me today.
“It was a vicious, sustained and repeated attack. It was totally unprovoked and totally out of the blue.”
The court heard that for years Barratt believed he was being harassed and persecuted by his neighbours. Judge Batty added: “Those beliefs were delusional and without foundation.”
In the hours before the attack, Barratt bizarrely claimed his neighbours had broken into his home and installed Spyware on his laptop.
At around 9pm on September 9 last year, his neighbours had been walking their dogs and were heading home along Spittal Hardwick Lane in Castleford.
A vehicle approached and mounted the kerb, heading over a grass verge and sped towards the couple.
The woman was able to dive out of the way but was still struck in the leg and arm by the car.
However, her husband took the impact, being flipped onto the bonnet and then to the floor unconscious.
Barratt then got out with either a bottle or a jar in his hand, approached the woman and repeatedly struck her and punched her shouting at her that he wanted her laptop and phone.
He then began attacking the unconscious man, hitting him with “full force”, prosecutor Michael Smith said. He then began dragging the woman by her hair before neighbours and onlookers intervened.
Barratt, of Spittal Hardwick Lane, was arrested and gave a no-comment interview to police.
The male victim suffered a gash to his head that left his skull visible. He had a fractured eye socket, broken nose and bruising to his pelvis.
His wife suffered extensive abrasions and bruising across her body.
But the court heard that the psychological effects remain, with them both suffering nightmares and flashbacks. The female victim is also thought to have PTSD.
Judge Batty said: “That night turned their lives upside down and had a devastating impact that still persists today.”
Mitigating for Barratt, Lucy Brown said: “The actions of that night were born entirely out of delusions he was harbouring.”
She said there was no evidence that the attack was planned, that he could have had no idea that the couple were walking along the street at that moment, and that the “intention to cause any harm formed very quickly”.
Judge Batty said that Barratt would have been facing a jail sentence of around six or seven years, but he followed a clinician’s recommendation to impose a Section 37 hospital order with restrictions.
This means he will be detained in a secure hospital and only the secretary of state can grant his release, but only when he is no longer deemed a danger to the public.