Machete thug cut man’s leg in half
JAILED FOR HORROR DAYTIME ATTACK AFTER ‘HIS HEAD WENT’
A FEUDING thug severed a defenceless man’s left leg in a horrifying broad daylight attack in the victim’s garden.
Joseph Hardy, 23, was seen waving a machete around his head before using it to attack the unarmed 25-year-old man at his Moston home.
The man now needs a wheelchair after his leg was effectively cut in two. Now Hardy has been jailed at Manchester Crown Court.
The court heard Hardy, who had been involved in a dispute with the victim, retrieved the machete from his car, unsheathed it and then used it to attack the man at an address on Kingscliffe Street at lunchtime on May 4.
Paramedics were called and could see bone protruding from the victim’s injured left leg as well as cuts to his head.
The leg was all but severed at the scene and doctors amputated it above the knee six days later.
An MRI scan also revealed the man had suffered a fractured skull, prosecutor Nicola Gatto told the court.
Joseph Hardy, of no fixed address but from the Harpurhey area, pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was jailed for 14 years. He must serve a minimum 10 years behind bars before he can apply for parole.
The attack happened while Hardy, who has previous convictions for violence, was serving a suspended prison sentence for dangerous driving.
Sentencing, Judge David Stockdale QC told him: “This was a brutal attack. It was also a cowardly attack.
“There was no prospect at all (the victim) could get the better of you, unarmed as he was.
“It was sustained attack in which you inflicted a range of wounds on a defenceless man.”
His victim had suffered ‘life-changing injuries’ and now needs a wheelchair, added the judge, who accepted Hardy had shown ‘a degree of remorse.’
Hardy’s brother Jethro Hardy, 24, of Fernclough Road in Harpurhey, was handed a 12-month sentence after he admitted a charge of affray arising out of the same incident. He was also given another four months behind bars for possessing a mobile phone charger while in prison.
Jethro Hardy told his police his brother’s ‘head went’ because of a previous incident in which he had been ‘rushed,’ or attacked, by the victim.