A drunk defendant demanded that a man he’d assaulted three months earlier ‘change’ his statement.

Leigh Clarke, 30, was drunk when he spotted the victim of an earlier attack in Witney town centre out shopping in Game on November 9, 2019.

He demanded: “Change your statement. It wasn’t me.” Clarke was so aggressive that a store assistant at the video game chain asked him to leave the shop.

The defendant had been due to be sentenced for the assault and the witness intimidation last month alongside co-defendant Samuel Cooper, who faced charges of assault and theft.

But Judge Michael Gledhill QC remanded him in custody after hearing he’d prioritised his birthday celebrations over speaking to the probation officer charged with preparing a pre-sentence report on him.

On Tuesday, his barrister described the last five weeks on remand as a salutary experience for his client. Lyall Thompson said: “If I can be frank, there was before an element of cockiness about Mr Clarke. That has completely disappeared, speaking with him today.”

Sentencing him to six months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Gledhill told the defendant: “You are 30 years old. You were behaving like a 15 or 16 year old. It’s absolutely pathetic.

“Your victim, who you didn’t know, was out and about on the day that you assaulted him minding his own business when you and your associate Cooper were drunk – and you certainly were under the influence of cocaine – and but for the drink and cocaine you wouldn’t have done what you did.”

The judge said Clarke’s victim, who fell into a shop window, ‘could have been killed’.

Earlier, the court heard that Clarke had drunk seven pints of beer and taken cocaine when he and Cooper came across their victim in Corn Street, Witney, at around 8pm on August 27, 2019. Cooper, who knew the victim, pushed him. Clarke followed, shoving the man into a shop window and causing the glass to smash. The victim’s phone was taken.

On November 9 in the same year, Clarke was again under the influence of alcohol when he confronted the victim in a chance encounter at Game. He told man to ‘change’ his statement and was acting so aggressively that a store assistant asked him to leave the shop.

Clarke, of Moorland Road, Witney, had been charged with robbery but pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to common assault and criminal damage. He admitted witness intimidation at a plea hearing.

Lyall Thompson, mitigating, said his client was sorry for the incidents that brought him before the court and for missing his probation appointment. He had the offer of work with a friend upon his release.

In a defence statement prepared for the robbery trial, Clarke said a motivation for the attack was his belief that the victim had been convicted of a sexual assault.

The defendant must do the thinking skills course, 20 rehabilitation activity sessions with probation and pay £500 in costs and compensation. A restraining order bans him from contacting his victim for five years.

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