Leeds judge acknowledges leniency after freeing thug over 'truly-appalling' hammer assault on ex
Partner attacked woman from behind with metal weapon due to his deepening financial crisis, but judge sets him free.
An ex boyfriend who launched a “truly appalling” and unprovoked hammer attack on his former partner has avoided custody, after the judge said prison could make his mental-health problems worse.
Without warning, Daniel Harder had pulled out the weapon and struck the woman on the back of her head, then tried to repeatedly strike her after she fell to the floor.
Luckily, she was able to fight him off.
Harder, 26, admitted at Leeds Crown Court a charge of attempting to cause GBH, but Judge Christopher Batty opted to give him a suspended sentence.
He said: “It was a truly appalling offence. You know that. You understand that.
“You had months of suicidal ideation. It seems to me that further custody could seriously damage the situation.
“I recognise that this may be seen as a lenient sentence when one considers what you did that day, but I have to bear on mind all the factors I have read about you.”
Harder has spent almost five months locked up in HMP Leeds on remand since the attack in November last year.
Prosecutor Zanisha Herbert said the couple had endured a “turbulent” nine-year relationship, had split up last year but she loaned him money and allowed him to stay at her home, off Manygates Lane in Wakefield.
On November 28 last year she arrived home just after 9pm and she asked Harder if he had been paid from his job, so he could reduce his debt to her.
He “stalled” and left the room, but returned carrying the hammer.
She was distracted and did not notice the weapon on his hand. He lifted it up and delivered a heavy blow to the back of her head.
He jumped on her and tried to hit her again, but she was able to disarm him.
Harder fled the address and the woman was taken to hospital, but luckily suffered no lasting injuries.
The woman later said she was “perplexed” as to why he had attacked her.
Following his arrest, Harder accepted full responsibility.
He claimed he did it to knock her out so he could collect his belongings and leave.
Mitigating, Emily Hassell, previously told the court that Harder had never been in trouble before but there had been “crippling financial pressure”.
He had lost his job in the first Covid lockdown, found it difficult to get a job, so borrowed money from the woman.
She added: “There was a deep decline of deceitful behaviour. It exacerbated his mental-health issues.
“His memory is that he wanted to end his own life and ensure she would not be able to interfere with that.”
She said he had been sectioned previously and had made several attempts on his life.
Ms Hassell said there were “traits” of emotionally-unstable personality disorder.
Judge Batty gave him a 20-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 20 rehabilitation days and a 26-session domestic-violence awareness course.
He was also given GPS-tracked exclusion-zone monitoring order, and a 10-year restraining order to keep him away from his former partner.