Thug hit three men with bottle
JON MACPHERSON
ADRUNK thug hit three men over the head with a whiskey bottle after they told him to leave a ‘jamming session’, a court heard.
Mark Aspin, 44, was invited back to Colin Western’s cottage in Oswaldtwistle but later told to leave when he ‘became opinionated and angry’ and abusive.
Prosecutor Stephen Parker told Burnley Crown Court that Aspin hit Mr Western several times over the head with a whiskey bottle before also striking Jason McIntyre and Mark Draper to the head when they tried to intervene.
Aspin, formerly of Higher Heys, Oswaldtwistle, pleaded guilty to three counts of ABH and given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months with a programme requirement and a 35-day rehabilitation activity requirement.
Mr Parker told the court how Aspin had been at the Heys pub in Oswaldtwistle on the evening of August 19, 2016, when he asked Mr Western if he could join his friends for the ‘jamming session’.
The court heard how Mr Western was ‘reluctant’ because of a recent incident involving Aspin at a music festival and believed ‘he could be aggressive when drunk’.
Mr Parker said Mr Western agreed to give Aspin a ‘second chance subject to a warning that he ought to be on his really good behaviour’.
However, Aspin later became ‘opinionated and angry’ and was trying to ‘belittle the host Colin Western for no reason, criticising his guitar playing, the court was told.
Mr Parker said there were ‘conflicting accounts from the witnesses as to how it was Aspin came to leave and the mechanics of doing so’.
He told the court that when Aspin was in the hallway he hit Mr Western to the head ‘several times’ with the whiskey bottle ‘causing a great deal of blood to come from his head’. When Jason McIntyre and Mark Draper tried to intervene they were also struck to the head with the bottle.
Mr McIntyre described Aspin as acting ‘like a mad man, swinging the bottle around and making strange noises like someone who is crazy’.
Mr Western and Mr McIntyre were taken to hospital and treated for superficial cuts.
When interviewed by police, Aspin said he was the victim of an assault and acted in self-defence.
In a victim impact, statement Mr Western said it was a ‘shocking and stressful time’.