A FEROCIOUS attack on a man as he was socialising with friends at a house in Carlisle late at night left him with suspected rib fractures, a collapsed lung, a facial fracture, and a torn spleen.

But the victim of Alan Crilley’s extreme violence on the night of August 21 last year refused to cooperate with the police.

At the city’s crown court, prosecuting barrister Brendan Burke explained that the police had wanted to charge the defendant with intentionally causing Anthony Sheckley grievous bodily harm.

But because the victim refused to talk to the police, Crilley was charged with affray, a less serious offence. The defendant, formerly of Hawthorne Grove, Carlisle, pleaded guilty to that offence.

Mr Sheckley was at a friend’s house in Sheehan Crescent, Raffles, and all three had been drinking and socialising when, at 10.30pm, Crilley arrived, uninvited and joined them in the house, said Mr Burke.

“He was behaving erratically and looked to Mr Sheckley to be heavily under the influence of narcotics,” continued the prosecutor. 

Crilley began shouting at everybody. He then launched three separate attacks on Mr Sheckley, the first consisting of six or seven punches to his body.

The victim did not react for fear of antagonising the defendant further, said Mr Burke. After a pause, Crilley resumed the attack. His last flurry of violence involved 10 punches, aimed at Mr Sheckley’s face and body.

Mr Sheckley's attempt to defendant himself involved  aiming just one punch at his attacker, the court heard.

As he left the house, Crilley told his victim that his partner would be coming round later “to stab” him, though there was no evidence for that claim. 

The barrister said that the victim spent two days in hospital and extensive injuries, which included three suspected rib fractures, a facial fracture, a collapsed left lung, bruising to his right lung, a torn spleen, and a suspected tear to his liver.

Despite the severity of his injuries and determined police efforts to speak to him, Mr Sheckley did not cooperate with the investigation and refused to answer his door to officers, even when neighbours confirmed he was at home.

A woman who witnessed the violence had also withdrawn her cooperation from the investigation, said Mr Burke.

The court heard that Crilley has a long criminal record, with 91 offences that range across the criminal calendar, his past crimes including previous affrays, assaults, harassment, burglary, and public order offences.

Mark Shepherd, defending, said the defendant had spent five and a half months on remand and regarded that period as the most difficult he had ever spent in jail, locked up as he was for 23 hours every day.

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The lawyer added that outside prison Crilley normally helped his mother, who was in extremely poor health.

Judge Nicholas Barker told the defendant: “You have pleaded guilty to this charge of affray, which you know – everybody knows – is a good deal less serious than the charge you were facing, causing grievous bodily harm with intent.”

The CPS had taken a pragmatic approach to the offending, observed the judge. But Judge Barker noted the defendant’s 10 previous assault convictions and the three previous affrays on his record.

He told Crilley: “At the age of 41, you are a man prone to violence; you have little or no control over the violence that you use on others, either irrationally, such as on this occasion, or simply because you are aggravated and lose control.”

Crilley had been given all manner of sentences, custodial and non-custodial, and none had impacted on his ability to control himself.

The judge jailed Crilley for two years.

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