‘CATALOGUE OF VIOLENCE’ TEENAGER LOCKED UP
JUDGE SAYS THAT HE NOW HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO THINK ABOUT HIS FUTURE
ASHBOURNE teenager Kelvin Mckendry has been told by a judge to think about his future after being sentenced to two years’ custody for a spate of violence which included headbutting his sister and whacking a driver in the face with a vodka bottle
AN Ashbourne teenager carried out what a judge called “a catalogue of violence” on people he knew, including head-butting his sister and whacking a driver in the face with a vodka bottle.
Kelvin Mckendry also goaded a separate victim before attacking him, by saying how much he was looking forward to sleeping with that man’s sister when she turned 16.
The 19-year-old sent a video message to a different man, threatening to stab him – and then punched a woman to the face when she asked him to leave her home.
Sending him to a young offender institution for two years, Judge Jonathan Bennett said: “It is a catalogue of violence, with you targeting family members, your sister, another sister’s boyfriend and friends.
“At least five people have been injured after being assaulted by you over a large number of separate incidents.
“It is a worrying trend and you barrister rightly concedes it has to be custody.
“But you are only just an adult and you have had a troubled background.
“Take the opportunity to think about the future.
“You can, if you want to, turn things around, it is entirely in your court.
“I really hope you can, there is clearly a lot of anger in you and you have to address those issues.
“You can turn things around, you are capable of doing it.”
Gurdial Singh, prosecuting, said the incidents happened mainly in Ashbourne and the surrounding area between December 2019 and 2020.
He said they including the defendant, of Brailsford, turning up uninvited at an address in Bernard Gadsby Close and assaulting his sister by headbutting her to the face when she asked him to leave after he goaded a man inside the address.
Mr Singh said Mckendry also deliberately and repeatedly reversed a car into a fence at the address of the parents of one ex-girlfriend on Christmas Day 2019.
He said the defendant sent a video message to a man he knew in which he threatened to stab him, leaving the victim scared for his safety.
Mr Singh said he then punched a woman to the face when she asked him to leave her home in Rose Hill, Woodville, Swadlincote, last July.
He said the most serious offence took pace in Ashbourne on December 24, 2020, when the defendant, of School Rise, attacked a man as he drove him around.
Mr Singh said: “The victim said he had been forced to give the defendant a lift saying he would assault him if he refused.
“He picked the defendant up and noticed he was drunk.
“He said to him ‘ ******* drive or I will smash your face in.’
“He then struck him to the face with a vodka bottle as he was driving.
“He stopped the car but was attacked again outside the vehicle by being punched to the face.
“He later described himself as feeling battered and bruised.’”
And three days later the defendant assaulted the new boyfriend of a former girlfriend outside Ye Olde Vaults pub in the Market Place.
Mckendry pleaded guilty to a number of offences relating to seven incidents in total.
They included assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, actual bodily harm, common assault, criminal damage, sending malicious communication and affray. He has five previous convictions for 13 offences.
Justin Ablott, mitigating, said his client had been in care since the age of 11 and that he had little contact with his father, brothers and sisters who he said all live in the Ashbourne area. He said: “He left care and found himself living alone for the first time in a flat in Ilkeston with little support and was unfamiliar to the area.
“He began drinking regularly and fairly heavily and started using cocaine.
“He knows he cannot behave in the way be behaved over the past year.”
He knows he cannot behave in the way he behaved over the past year.
Justin Ablott