Thug attacked Pontefract sandwich-shop owner with dumbbell bar
A thug attacked a shopkeeper with a metal bar only for the victim to grab it from him and chase him away.
Little explanation was given as to why Martin McCarthy launched the brutal attack on the man, who desperately tried to fend off the blows of the weighty dumbbell bar.
McCarthy, 57, was jailed at Leeds Crown Court this week after admitting Section 18 GBH with intent.
The court was told that the sandwich-shop owner on Newgate in Pontefract town centre had closed up for the day at around 2pm on February 11, 2023.
He went to a caravan outside the back of the shop to complete paperwork for the business when McCarthy walked in without being invited.
Prosecutor Gareth Henderson-Moore said they were not known to each other.
McCarthy asked when the shop would be open, before inexplicably launching at the man swinging the bar towards his head.
He swung at him three times but the man was able to block them with his arm and hand, before he was able to grab the bar and wrestle it from McCarthy.
He then chased him out, with McCarthy shouting there were other men with him in a bid to deter the victim.
McCarthy, of Heald Street, Castleford, has nine previous convictions for 10 offences, including wounding, battery and ABH.
Mitigating, Matthew Moore-Taylor said McCarthy works and is a carer for his alcoholic wife of 30 years, who would suffer if he was to be jailed.
Little explanation was provided as to why the man was attacked.
The judge, Recorder Janine Wolstenholme said McCarthy had “minimised” the attack. She gave him 37 months’ jail, and an indefinite-length restraining order.