Jail for Oxford's 'one man crime wave' who had 'Nando's stick'

Sending Arron Gardner to prison for 22-and-a-half months, Judge Michael Gledhill QC told the 36-year-old: “You’re a one man crime wave.”

Noting the thief had already spent nine months in custody, he added: “It won’t be terribly long before you are released, but you don’t need me to tell you [that] you can’t carry on like this.”

On July 15 last year, Gardner armed himself with a ‘Nando’s stick’ – the cockerel-topped probe used as a table marker at the chicken restaurant chain – and slashed at a man in Williamson Way, Oxford.

The victim, who was left with a torn shirt, had gone to the aid of a group of youngsters who were arguing with the defendant and his partner.

The Nando's stick used by Arron Gardner Pictures: CPS

In December, he committed a slew of thefts. On December 2 last year he broke into a Land Rover parked outside a house and made off with a Mitre saw and spare tyre.

A week later, on December 9, he was one of several men who went into a Tesco store in Oxford and grabbed bottles of Southern Comfort from the shelves. Gardner was stopped at the scene.

He was caught on another victim’s CCTV doorbell in the early hours of December 16 trying the doors of a Ford C-Max and Peugeot Partner van, but left empty handed.

Finally, on December 22, he was in the cells at Abingdon police station when a female custody sergeant opened the hatch to check on the suspect. He spat at the officer, hitting her in the eye.

In a victim statement summarised to the court by prosecutor Philip Allman, the sergeant said she’d worried about whether she could have contracted coronavirus, hepatitis or HIV as a result. The chances were slim, she said: “At the back of my mind there was always a little voice saying you might be really poorly as a result of this.”

At a hearing earlier this week, Judge Gledhill was asked by Gardner’s lawyer to indicate the likely sentence he would impose if the defendant admitted making threats using the Nando’s stick.

When the judge said he would sentence him to no more than 15 months, Gardner pleaded guilty to the charge.

“I will keep my promise,” Judge Gledhill told him on Wednesday morning.

Imposing 15 months for the weapons offence and adding seven-and-a-half months for the assault on the officer and the thefts, the judge said of the spitting: “That is a dreadful offence.

“It might not in fact have caused physical harm but the effect on that officer at the time and before she realised following the medical intervention that there were no serious consequences must have been terrible.”

Mitigating, Richard Davies said his client had struggled with drug addiction. He was remorseful.

Gardner, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to threatening another with an offensive weapon, theft, vehicle interference and assaulting an emergency worker.

Arron Gardner's custody shot Picture: TVP

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