Pensioner stabbed motorist with hunting knife for parking across his driveway

A PENSIONER who plunged a hunting knife into a neighbour’s boyfriend in a row over car parking has been jailed for six years.

Frederick Day, 72, lunged at 22-year-old Brandon Luther with the knife, leaving a nine centimetre deep wound in his side.

The court heard how there had been an issue with parking, with people overlapping Mr Day’s driveway, for a number of years.

Tensions boiled over on January 9 this year when Mr Luther went to pick up some belongings from his girlfriend Hannah Chandler’s house and he parked slightly overlapping Mr Day’s drive.

Day went to fetch a hunting knife, which he used to skin rabbits and for gardening.

Caroline Bolt, prosecuting, said: “When Brandon was leaving, Mr Day came out and threatened to damage his car if he didn’t move it.

“Mr Day briefly went back into his garage and came out again. He continued telling him to move his car, and was being angry and aggressive.

“Brandon tried to get Hannah to go back inside.

“Mr Day continued to shout, and then lunged at Mr Luther, who felt pain in his side and realised he had been stabbed and was bleeding.”

When giving evidence, the pensioner said: “I am sick of people parking where I park my car.

“I thought he is really not moving and he is laughing, and he really got to me, and I thrust the knife in him.”

OAP JAILED

Hannah Chandler and her mum, Sue, rushed Brandon back inside, locking the door and calling for an ambulance.

Mrs Bolt said: “Mr Luther was taken to hospital for treatment to a stab wound to his right flank, which was one centimetre long and nine centimetres deep”.

Mr Luther suffered significant bleeding from an artery behind his kidney and spent a week in hospital.

Day admitted causing grievous bodily harm but denied the more serious charge of wounding with intent.

However he seemed to have sealed his own fate when he said: “I took the knife from my back pocket and I intended to stick him. I intended to stab him and cause him serious injury.”

The 72-year-old was sentenced to six years in prison following the trial at Taunton Crown Court.

Sentencing, Judge Ticehurst said: “For a period of several years, I am in no doubt you made your neighbours’ lives a misery.

“Your obsession with parking outside your house culminated in the attack on Brandon Luther, where you deliberately equipped yourself with a knife.

“You could have killed him, and would be standing there facing a sentence of life in prison for murder”.

Day was also given a £170 victim surcharge and a restraining order not to contact Mr Luther, or the Chandler family for a decade.

Emma Martin, representing Day, said: “His sympathies are with Brandon Luther and the Chandler family, but he is also devastated by the harm caused to his nearest and dearest.

“He knows the only person responsible and to blame for this is him.

“His troubled upbringing has clearly left a deep scar in him. In his own words ‘all the medication in the world cannot take away memories’.

“He has a wife of more than 50 years and three daughters. Not all the neighbours viewed him in the same way the Chandlers did and were willing to support him.”

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