Baseball bat used to hit woman after text row

A 31-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for injuring a woman with a baseball bat following a “vitriolic” text row between his partner and the complainant.

Leon Lang claimed to have gone to the house in Brighouse to “diffuse” the situation with Davinna Adams, but his barrister said things got out of hand and he now regretted causing the injuries.

Lang, of Highcroft Crescent, Almondbury, picked up the baseball bat which was inside the property and aimed a blow at Miss Adams which she managed to block with her wrist.

But prosecutor Carmel Pearson told Bradford Crown Court that a second blow with the bat struck the complainant on the back of the head causing a deep cut to her scalp.

Miss Adams had to have stitches put in the wound and Judge Colin Burn was shown photographs of the complainant’s injured head and badly swollen wrist.

Lang, who had no previous convictions for violence, was originally charged with wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm but his guilty plea to a lesser offence of unlawful wounding was accepted by the prosecution.

Barrister Howard Shaw, for Lang, said there was some dispute about what precisely happened that day in November, but he said the text messages between the two women could only be described as “vitriolic”.

“The cut to the complainant’s head is nasty, we can see that,” conceded Mr Shaw.

“The incident itself was ugly and without detracting that in from any way it is right to say it was over in a matter of seconds. “There were no fractures fortunately and, perhaps, by the grace of God. “It occurred in the context of this heated scenario between the current partner and the complainant – a scenario he bitterly regrets.” Mr Shaw submitted an immediate prison sentence would have a catastrophic effect on Lang and his family because the defendant was

close to completing a college plumbing course. He described Lang as a hard-working family man, but Judge Burn said he was having to sentence the defendant as the person who tried on one occasion, and succeeded on the second, to hit Miss Adams to the head with a baseball bat.

The judge said the sentence had to be immediate imprisonment for the offence which had been triggered by the texts exchanged between the complainant and Lang’s partner.

Judge Burn said the jail term would have been 20 months after a trial, but Lang’s guilty plea meant the prison sentence could be reduced to 15 months.