Man who took knife and meat cleaver to pub is jailed (From Oxford Mail)

Man who took knife and meat cleaver to pub is jailed

6:10pm Monday 4th March 2013 in News

A MAN who went to confront two others carrying a pool cue, knife and meat cleaver before attacking them has been jailed for a year.

Craig Hewitt, 22, returned to Abingdon’s Boundary House pub with a “burning sense of grievance” after being ejected by manager Andrew Hewitt with former staff member Tobias Imms-Harris, Oxford Crown Court heard on Thursday.

He left after a complaint about something he said at about 11.30pm on September 16, said prosecutor Graham Bennett, and returned at 1.20am where he was seen “in the shadows”

outside.

Imms-Harris punched Hewitt when he saw him remove a pool cue from his waistband and was then punched four to six times, Mr Bennett said, resulting in two cuts to his head that needed eight stitches.

Hewitt was struck on the right side of the chest, he said, and was wrestled by another staff member when he picked up a knife that fell from his back pocket.

Police found the meat cleaver in his jacket.

Hewitt, of Windrush Way, Abingdon, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, three counts of having an offensive weapon and common assault.

Judge Patrick Eccles said Hewitt returned looking for a confrontation with the two.

He said: “Wielding that pool cue was grossly in excess in any legitimate form of self-defence.”

Joanna Durber, defending, said Hewitt did not intend to use the weapons which “lent him confidence”.

Hewitt had a home and job and was ‘moving on”. Prison would leave him open to bullying and victimisation, she said.

But Judge Eccles said: “Parliament and other courts have made it clear the public interest should be put above your own welfare interests.”