Father, 29, attacked children and drove into wall
A FATHER attacked his three young children and stepdaughter with a hammer during a cocaine-induced psychotic episode and then drove them into a wall at 92mph, a court has heard.
A judge heard the four children were left with life-changing injuries by Owen Scott’s actions, with his seven-year-old daughter losing a large part of her skull, leaving her partially paralysed and needing to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
Scott, 29, who claims to have no memory of the incident, was arrested after his car crashed into the Travellers Inn at a remote location near Penistone, South Yorkshire, in August.
He was jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday after admitting at an earlier hearing to four counts of attempted murder and dangerous driving.
The judge, Mrs Justice O’Farrell, ordered him to serve a minimum of 14 years before he can apply to be released.
She heard how Scott had been a loving father to his children, aged seven, 21 months and nine months, and his stepdaughter, eight, even after the breakdown of his relationship with his former partner.
But in the weeks before the incident, he developed paranoia, put down to a temporary psychosis caused by his long-term recreational cocaine and cannabis use.
Prosecutor Simon Keeley QC said Scott became convinced he was being chased by a gang who meant him and his children harm.
Scott picked up the children – who lived with his ex-partner Sheryl Rogers in Southampton – and went on a two-day trip around the country, crashing into the pub 230 miles from their home in the early hours of August 23.
Mr Keeley said police had only traced part of Scott’s route but he first went to the Isle of Wight before travelling to Liverpool.
He headed to the Huddersfield area and then into South Yorkshire, where the crash happened on the A629.
A police sergeant who witnessed the collision said uninjured Scott clambered over the seriously injured children after the crash.
Two girls were found on top of each other on the central console of the car, a 21-month-old boy was found in a footwell and his little brother was in a carry-cot, also in a footwell, the judge heard.
“You made no attempt to comfort or assist them or check whether they were injured,” the judge said. The judge spent 10 minutes listing the “life-threatening and life-changing” injuries suffered by each child, including blows to the head consistent with a hammer found in the car.
Michelle Colborne QC, defending, said doctors believe he was suffering a temporary psychotic episode caused by his drug use.
The judge told Scott: “You will have to live for the rest of your life knowing that you have damaged, in some cases irrecoverably, the health, both physically and psychologically, of your children.”
Detective Chief Inspector David Stopford, of South Yorkshire Police, said the scene of the tragedy was ‘horrific’.