MAN THREATENED BUTCHERED VICTIM OF MACHETE ATTACK
INSTEAD OF CALLING AN AMBULANCE, 38-YEAR-OLD HELD A TABLE LEG OVER SEVERELY WOUNDED PERSON’S HEAD
A HULL man who threatened a butchered machete victim with a table leg has been jailed.
Campbell Higinbotham, 38, knew his victim had been badly hacked at with a machete – leaving his arm “hanging on with a piece of skin” – by two other men. However, Higinbotham, of Chester Grove, believed the victim had robbed him.
Instead of calling an ambulance, Higinbotham held a table leg over his head and threatened to beat him with it unless the victim told him where the stolen items were.
Hull Crown Court heard that the attack happened on October 3, 2020, and the victim had run away from the two machete attackers to nearby Doncaster Street, where he was sliced multiple times with a blade.
Richard Hamilton, 48, also of Chester Grove, then sheltered the machete attackers in his home and called a taxi for them. He was later charged with assisting the offenders after helping them moments after the brutal fight.
Prosecutor Nigel Clive said Higinbotham had no part to play in the knife attack on the victim, but was seen telling him “I don’t care if you die” and threatening him with the table leg.
“Police were called to Doncaster
Street because [the victim] had been discovered by residents in the street, lying in the road with significant wounds,” said Mr Clive.
“These were stab wounds caused by a machete, which left him with life-changing injuries.
“One injury had his left arm hanging by a piece of skin and [the victim] is lucky to be alive. It is not said by the crown that either of these defendants were actually involved in that assault.
“The neighbours, however, began to gather around [the victim] in the street and saw Higinbotham approach and spoke to [the victim] on the ground who said he was dying.
“Higinbotham said ‘I don’t care if you die, you can die in front of me if you want, I just want to know what you’ve taken off my bed’ and was holding a large wooden bat that may have been a table leg or something similar.
“[The victim] gave an account to the police and said he went to Chester Grove [where Higinbotham lives in a HMO with others] to buy drugs, but when he arrived there he saw a female who was possibly being assaulted and entered and asked what was going on.
“He said that some other unknown males chased him from the property into Doncaster Street, where he was struck with a machete.”
Neither defendants were a stranger to breaking the law, with Higinbotham having seven convictions for ten offences and Hamilton having 25 convictions for 112 offences.
In Higinbotham’s defence, it was heard that he threatened the victim as he believed he had threatened him and his girlfriend with a knife in their HMO and then stole possessions from his bed.
The court heard that Hamilton, who sheltered the two machete attackers in his house down the street from Higinbotham’s and then rang a taxi for them to get away, did so as he was a vulnerable adult who had previously been cuckooed.
It was said that Hamilton who was scared to turn the attackers away and would not disclose their identities to the police for fear of reprisal.
Judge Mark Bury said it was an “unusual situation” and sentenced the pair each to six months in prison.
But as they had been on remand in custody since the attack in October, they had already served half their sentence and would soon be allowed to be released under post-sentence supervision.
“I have come to the conclusion for different reasons in each of your cases that you are now effectively time served,” said Judge Bury.
“The circumstances of this case are unusual and there are some doubts about what [the victim] was doing at [Higinbotham’s home].
“It’s clear from the behaviour of you, Higinbotham, afterwards, that whatever he was doing, you were accusing him of stealing from you.
“Given that this was a house of multiple occupancy, that may well also be true and at the end of the day, you haven’t caused him any injury.
“As far as you, Hamilton, are concerned, your background is such that I’m quite satisfied that when it came to it, you didn’t feel you could put up any resistance to the proposition that you help out the persons involved [in the stabbing], hence why you both got the sentences you have.”