Suspended sentence for man who attacked neighbour with bat

Wednesday 15 May 2024

A 41-year-old man who attacked a neighbour with a wooden bat under the false belief that he had beaten up a child has been given a two-year suspended jail sentence.

Ryan Porter was told that “the custodial threshold was plainly passed” given the severity of the grave and criminal assault, but that Jurats had agreed not to jail him unless he reoffended within the next two years.

The Royal Court heard that Porter had gone to the neighbour’s home in St Clement armed with the bat and hit him repeatedly in the head and face with it.

He did so after being falsely told that the neighbour had physically attacked a child.

In trial, Porter accepted that he told the victim: “Pick on someone your own size you child-beating scumbag.”

The victim was eating his dinner at the time of the attack and Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit, prosecuting, said: “There was an element of surprise. His plate went flying.”

Crown Advocate Maletroit explained that the victim and his then-girlfriend had had a row on the evening of 27 August 2022, and the woman had stormed out and gone to Porter’s house.

There, she claimed falsely that the victim had assaulted a child.

The Crown Advocate said: “The defendant did not ask her for any further information. He took the law into his own hands.

"The victim was caught completely by surprise. He didn’t know who was attacking him or why.”

Another neighbour heard the disturbance and phoned the police, who arrived just after 23:00.

The victim had blood on his forehead and was bleeding down one side of his face, the court heard. There were lacerations to his scalp and bruises around his right eye.

The Crown Advocate, who called for a three-year jail term, added that the woman’s allegation that the victim had attacked the child was proven untrue.

“There was no evidence that the child was in danger whatsoever," said Advocate Maletroit.

"The child was found to be safe and well, and nothing untoward had happened.”

Porter hid the weapon and his bloodstained clothes in a cupboard but they were found to bear both men’s DNA.

He was later found guilty after a two-day trial.

Advocate Heidi Heath, defending, said the fault lay with the victim’s ex-girlfriend, arguing: “She knew which buttons to press. She was the trigger.

“He had been led to believe that her child was being beaten up by an adult man. He now knows that the mother had lied.”

She added: “This is a man who has never been in court before and will never be here again.”

Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae told Porter: “This was an essentially vigilante attack, which is entirely unacceptable in this day and age, where the police are readily available.”

He said that Jurats had been divided over whether to jail him or impose a community service order, so the two-year sentence suspended for two years represented a compromise.

Porter was also ordered to pay the victim £1,500 in compensation at the rate of £150 per month.

The Jurats sitting were Karen Le Cornu and David Le Heuzé.