Worse things happen at sea!
Courageous verdict of the D-Day veteran, 96, battered in his own home by vagrant with a claw hammer
‘Hit me six times on the head’
A D-DAY veteran left for dead by a hammer-wielding burglar says he experienced worse horrors in the war – and may yet forgive his assailant.
Jim Booth, 96, was attacked by Joseph Isaacs, 40, an illiterate vagrant who posed as a builder before hitting the great-grandfather with a claw hammer.
He made off with Mr Booth’s wallet – using his bank card to buy fast food and cigarettes – before he was arrested two days later.
Widowed Mr Booth came to minutes after the attack, on the afternoon of November 22 last year, and staggered into the street to summon help. He spent eight days in hospital where he was treated for lacerations to his head, hands and arms as well as a series of skull fractures.
Isaacs was yesterday found guilty of attempted murder and given a 20-year extended sentence following a four- day trial at Taunton Crown Court.
He will serve 16 years in custody and four years on licence.
A jury of seven men and five women took less than two hours to reach their verdicts. Isaacs had admitted attacking Mr Booth in his bungalow in Taunton, Somerset, but denied attempted murder.
Sentencing, Judge David Ticehurst told him: ‘It was a brutal and utterly senseless attack. Jim Booth was 96 years old, living on his own but with remarkable independence and vigour. The effect upon him and his family has been devastating as is clear from Mr Booth’s victim impact statement.
‘That your crimes have had such a devastating and damaging impact is something you should reflect upon in the years before you.’
Mr Booth is a Navy veteran who was awarded a Croix de Guerre military medal by the French for his gallantry during the D-Day landings in 1944.
The former Lieutenant Commander is the only surviving member of a ten-man mini submarine team that helped guide landing craft by shining beacons to keep them away from treacherous rocks. He stayed in the Navy after the war, later helping to clear mines in the Mediterranean before becoming a teacher when a lung condition forced him out of the military. A regular fixture at Royal Navy veterans’ events, he danced with the Duchess of Cornwall in August 2015.
Describing Isaacs as a ‘monster,’ Mr Booth said: ‘Worse things happen at sea, as they say, in war... I blame myself because I was Special Services, you know. I should really have known how to deal with this, but I didn’t. I was too old obviously.’ Reliving the attack, he said: ‘There was this guy outside and in his hand was this obviously brand new, very shiny, claw hammer. He said, “oh, I’m a builder”.
‘I said, “what’s the problem?” He said, “well, I see that the slates up there just by the roof look at bit loose and we could give you a very good deal”.’
Mr Booth said when he refused, Isaacs ‘advanced on me and started lifting up his claw hammer’.
‘He said, “I could give you a very good deal”, and came even nearer. And then he started shouting “money, money, money”.
‘He started lifting the thing and
advanced on me, pushed me backwards, right up the passage coming into this room, from the front. I now know that he, well, I didn’t really remember it, but he hit me six times on the head as well as more on the arms with the claw hammer and the claw side of it too.’
Mr Booth, who watched Isaacs get sentenced, said his Christian faith would determine whether he could ever forgive him.
‘Presumably something terrible happened in his life and who knows what it was and turned him into a near monster,’ he said. ‘So to that extent, I understand. But obviously I can’t understand what he did frankly, and why. There seems be no reason why. That’s how I am at the moment.’
The court heard Isaacs had two previous convictions and a police caution, all for shoplifting.
During the trial, Isaacs told jurors he was in the middle of a ‘nervous breakdown’ when he attacked Mr Booth. He said he had been sleeping in his car and had not eaten for four days.
Asked if he knew hitting someone on the head with a hammer could cause them harm, he told prosecutor Rachel Drake: ‘You are probably right, but have you ever had a nervous breakdown, Miss? Do you know what it is like not to have food for four days?’