By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 11:31, Monday, 01 October 2012

Four men involved in serious trouble featuring a golf club and extendable baton which broke out on one of Carlisle’s housing estates have been sentenced at the city’s Crown Court.

Passing sentence, Judge Paul Batty QC described it as an “appalling piece of street violence” in which innocent people – including elderly women – had been “terrorised”.

At an earlier hearing prosecuting counsel David Traynor said the trouble seemed to have had its origins in an allegation that someone had interfered with the mobility scooter used by a woman on the Harraby estate.

As a result Mark Lowther, 26, and Jamie Davison, 18, confronted each other in a garden and what started as “a verbal exchange” quickly became a fight, with the two of them grappling on the floor, he said.

Wayne Blair, 23, and Stephen Currie, 23, then arrived by car, and Currie swung an extendable baton at Davison who was armed with a golf club, the court heard.

PC Paula Dixon, who was nearby on an unconnected inquiry, heard the “screaming and shouting” and went to investigate. She found about seven people in the road while Lowther and Davison were facing up to each other in the garden.

The teenager was standing with the golf club raised as if he was going to strike Lowther, who was facing him with blood pouring down his face, she said. The fighting stopped when those involved saw the police officer’s uniform.

Davison was arrested at the scene, and the golf club he had been using was found in a house nearby.

Blair, Currie and Lowther drove off but they were stopped soon afterwards by police who found the baton in their car.

The court heard that when interviewed by the police Davison and Lowther both blamed each other.

The teenager admitted going to confront Lowther but said he only used the golf club to defend himself when the other man punched him without warning.

Lowther said Davison had hit him with the golf club after he went to the area “just to see what was going on”.

All four men admitted a charge of affray – two of them changing their pleas to guilty only after their trial had started.

Blair, of Ennerdale Avenue, Botcherby, was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, ordered to do 300 hours unpaid community work and put under a curfew to keep him indoors at his home every night for the next six months.

Currie, of Borland Avenue, Botcherby, was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, with 250 hours unpaid community work and a five-month curfew. Lowther, of Ennerdale Avenue, Botcherby, was ordered to do 150 hours unpaid community work and a five-month curfew.

Davison, who lives in Gretna, was given 12 months’ youth rehabilitation, ordered to do 120 hours unpaid work and put under a five-month curfew.

First published at 11:26, Monday, 01 October 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk